A very rough, experimental demonstration of what can be done with SSML.

Implemented a ssml  translator inherriting from speech.  Overwritten subscripts to produce a pitch decrement and roots to include a pause.

Added a test_ssml script.  This prints the ssml translation but the output can be piped to espeak with 
./test_ssml | espeak -m

latex_access/ssml.py

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+# ssml.py
+#    A part of the latex-access project at http://latex-access.sourceforge.net/
+#    Author: Alastair Irving <[email protected]>
+#    Copyright (C) 2011 Alastair Irving/latex-access Contributors
+#
+#    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
+#    either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
+#
+#    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+#    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+#    See the GNU General Public License for more details.
+#
+#    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, visit <http://www.gnu.org/licenses>
+#
+'''Experimental Module to provide speech output in SSML for latex_access.'''
+
+
+import speech
+from latex_access import get_arg
+
+sb='<break strength="strong">'
+
+class ssml(speech.speech):
+    def __init__(self):
+        speech.speech.__init__(self)
+        self.table["_"]=('<prosody pitch="-15%">','</prosody>')
+
+
+    def sqrt(self,input,start):
+        '''Translates squareroots into speech.
+        
+        returns touple.'''
+        arg=get_arg(input,start)
+        if arg[0].isdigit() or len(arg[0])==1:
+            translation=" root "+arg[0]
+        else:
+            translation=" begin root "+sb+self.translate(arg[0])+" end root "+sb
+        return (translation,arg[1])

test_ssml

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+#!/usr/bin/python
+'''Script to translate lines of laTeX from stdin to  in stdout.'''
+
+
+import sys
+import latex_access.ssml as ssml
+
+
+s=ssml.ssml()
+
+
+while True:
+    input = sys.stdin.readline()
+    output=s.translate(input)
+    print output
+    sys.stdout.flush()