Troubleshooting sequences of phonetic characters

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Troubleshooting sequences of phonetic characters

Problem

When Phonology Assistant (PA) reads the data sources and divides the transcriptions into phones, it does not assume some sequences of phonetic characters are phones.

Explanation

A base character is a phonetic character that can represent a phone. For example, o is a base character, because it represents the phone [o].

Most phones are represented by a single base character followed by zero or more modifying characters (diacritics or tone markings). For example, [o] or [õ].

However, some phones are represented by sequences that do not begin with a base character or that include more than one base character.

In phonetic transcriptions, PA assumes, as a rule, that each base character represents the beginning of a phone.

Solution

To convert a phonetic sequence to a unit (phone), do one of the following:

In Ambiguous Sequences, add the sequence to the Sequence column, and then select the Treat as one unit check box.
Using an Experimental Transcriptions ScreenTip, add the sequence to the Transcribed in source as column, and then combine the base characters using an upper or lower tie-bar character in the Convert to one of these options column.
In the data sources, edit the transcriptions to combine the base characters using an upper or lower tie-bar character.

Sequences of a non-base character and one following base character

A prenasalized phone is represented by a superscript followed by a base character (for example, ᵐb, ⁿd, ᵑg).

Use solution 1. If you do not define the ambiguous sequence, PA assumes that the diacritic goes with the preceding base character. However, if a word begins with a non-base character, PA assumes it is part of the representation of the first phone, even if you do not define the ambiguous sequence.

Do not use solutions 2 or 3, because PA requires the set of characters combined using a tie-bar to include two base characters.

Sequences of more than one base character

Here are examples of common affricates/double articulations and vowel transitions.

Sequence	Solution 1: what to add to Ambiguous Sequences list	Solution 2: what to convert to in Experimental Transcriptions list	Solution 3: what to modify original transcription to
ts	ts	t͡s	t͡s
dz	dz	d͡z	d͡z
tʃ	tʃ	t͡ʃ	t͡ʃ
mb	mb	m͜b	m͜b
nd	nd	n͜d	n͜d
ŋg	ŋg	ŋ͡g	ŋ͡g
i̯u	i̯u	i̯͡u	i̯͡u
ai̯	ai̯	a͡i̯	a͡i̯
i̯ai̯	i̯ai̯

For sequences like i̯ai̯ that contain more than two base characters, use solution 1. Do not use solutions 2 or 3, because tie-bars can combine only two base characters in PA.