How to split IPA spelling into syllables












10















First, please forgive my ignorance, I'm completely new to linguistics.



Given the IPA spelling for word, is it possible to programmatically split it into its sounds? So, for example, given the word "ingredient" and it's IPA spelling "ɪn'gridiənt", is it possible to split it into ["ɪn", "gri", "di", "ənt"]? Is there perhaps a finite list of sounds, at least in the English language, by which an IPA word can be split?



Any help appreciated










share|improve this question









New contributor




skedly is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
Check out our Code of Conduct.

























    10















    First, please forgive my ignorance, I'm completely new to linguistics.



    Given the IPA spelling for word, is it possible to programmatically split it into its sounds? So, for example, given the word "ingredient" and it's IPA spelling "ɪn'gridiənt", is it possible to split it into ["ɪn", "gri", "di", "ənt"]? Is there perhaps a finite list of sounds, at least in the English language, by which an IPA word can be split?



    Any help appreciated










    share|improve this question









    New contributor




    skedly is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
    Check out our Code of Conduct.























      10












      10








      10


      3






      First, please forgive my ignorance, I'm completely new to linguistics.



      Given the IPA spelling for word, is it possible to programmatically split it into its sounds? So, for example, given the word "ingredient" and it's IPA spelling "ɪn'gridiənt", is it possible to split it into ["ɪn", "gri", "di", "ənt"]? Is there perhaps a finite list of sounds, at least in the English language, by which an IPA word can be split?



      Any help appreciated










      share|improve this question









      New contributor




      skedly is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
      Check out our Code of Conduct.












      First, please forgive my ignorance, I'm completely new to linguistics.



      Given the IPA spelling for word, is it possible to programmatically split it into its sounds? So, for example, given the word "ingredient" and it's IPA spelling "ɪn'gridiənt", is it possible to split it into ["ɪn", "gri", "di", "ənt"]? Is there perhaps a finite list of sounds, at least in the English language, by which an IPA word can be split?



      Any help appreciated







      ipa syllables phonotactics






      share|improve this question









      New contributor




      skedly is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
      Check out our Code of Conduct.











      share|improve this question









      New contributor




      skedly is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
      Check out our Code of Conduct.









      share|improve this question




      share|improve this question








      edited Mar 20 at 0:58









      Nardog

      1,1041415




      1,1041415






      New contributor




      skedly is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
      Check out our Code of Conduct.









      asked Mar 19 at 22:52









      skedlyskedly

      534




      534




      New contributor




      skedly is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
      Check out our Code of Conduct.





      New contributor





      skedly is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
      Check out our Code of Conduct.






      skedly is a new contributor to this site. Take care in asking for clarification, commenting, and answering.
      Check out our Code of Conduct.






















          1 Answer
          1






          active

          oldest

          votes


















          16














          This is, in fact, possible! It's not trivial, but it is straightforward.



          Your goal seems to be to break an English word (written in phonemic IPA) into syllables. There's a bit of controversy about how useful the concept of a "syllable" is in English, and a few different theories about what exactly a "syllable" is if it does exist, but the following is pretty widely accepted and should be good for your purpose.



          First, the theory of syllable structure: every syllable looks something like ONC, where O is the onset, N is the nucleus, and C is the coda. The nucleus is a vowel (*), and always has to be there; the onset and coda are groups of consonants, and aren't required (**).



          Second, the maximal onset principle: we want the onset to be as long as possible. So "tube" is /tub/, but "tuba" is /tu.ba/: the /b/ goes with the second syllable, because that makes the onset bigger.



          Third, the syllable structure constraints: certain patterns of consonants aren't allowed together. This one varies by language, but in English, the onset can only be three consonants long at most, and you can't have a stop followed by a fricative in the onset, among many others. So "axle" is /ak.səl/ instead of */a.ksəl/, despite the maximal onset principle. Wikipedia has a good list of these constrains.



          So if you want an algorithm for doing this:




          • Locate all the nuclei (vowels)

          • For each nucleus, work backward, adding sounds to the onset

          • If the onset stops being valid, take a step back, then put all the rest of the sounds in the previous syllable's coda




          (*) Some analyses of English have syllabic resonants, while others treat them as /ə/ plus resonant. In this answer I'm assuming you're using the version with schwa.



          (**) You might also come across the term "rime", which means the nucleus and coda together. The nucleus and coda seem to be more firmly joined than the nucleus and onset, so it's sometimes useful to have a word for them together: in particular, that's how rhyming works.






          share|improve this answer


























          • What a fantastic answer. You're right, I'm trying to programatically translate a word or phrase into Aig, aka Aigy-Paigy. WordsApi provides the syllables and the IPA for a given word. I'm now considering where to insert eɪg. It might take me a while to decode and then code what you've provided but you've given me lots to go on. Thank you.

            – skedly
            Mar 19 at 23:22













          • @skedly You're in luck in that case! That's even easier: find all the vowels (you can identify them on an IPA chart), then insert eɪg before each one. The only trick is figuring out whether two vowels in a row are a diphthong (should be treated as one vowel) or hiatus (should go in separate syllables). But there are only a handful of diphthongs in English, so you can just look those up in a table.

            – Draconis
            Mar 19 at 23:33






          • 3





            I want to add that the "syllable structure constraints" is part, and a big part at that, of the subject called phonotactics. This Wikipedia article may itself be useful, though it doesn't look great, but mainly, I think it may be a useful keyword for further searches if you need to refine your algorithm beyond what this answer provides.

            – LjL
            Mar 20 at 0:49













          • It might be noted that the maximal onset principle is problematic with compound words or continuous speech (which require semantic parsing) -- but that doesn't matter re. Aigy-Paigy which inserts adjacent to the nucleus.

            – amI
            2 days ago











          Your Answer








          StackExchange.ready(function() {
          var channelOptions = {
          tags: "".split(" "),
          id: "312"
          };
          initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);

          StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function() {
          // Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
          if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled) {
          StackExchange.using("snippets", function() {
          createEditor();
          });
          }
          else {
          createEditor();
          }
          });

          function createEditor() {
          StackExchange.prepareEditor({
          heartbeatType: 'answer',
          autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
          convertImagesToLinks: false,
          noModals: true,
          showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
          reputationToPostImages: null,
          bindNavPrevention: true,
          postfix: "",
          imageUploader: {
          brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
          contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
          allowUrls: true
          },
          noCode: true, onDemand: true,
          discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
          ,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
          });


          }
          });






          skedly is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.










          draft saved

          draft discarded


















          StackExchange.ready(
          function () {
          StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2flinguistics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f30933%2fhow-to-split-ipa-spelling-into-syllables%23new-answer', 'question_page');
          }
          );

          Post as a guest















          Required, but never shown

























          1 Answer
          1






          active

          oldest

          votes








          1 Answer
          1






          active

          oldest

          votes









          active

          oldest

          votes






          active

          oldest

          votes









          16














          This is, in fact, possible! It's not trivial, but it is straightforward.



          Your goal seems to be to break an English word (written in phonemic IPA) into syllables. There's a bit of controversy about how useful the concept of a "syllable" is in English, and a few different theories about what exactly a "syllable" is if it does exist, but the following is pretty widely accepted and should be good for your purpose.



          First, the theory of syllable structure: every syllable looks something like ONC, where O is the onset, N is the nucleus, and C is the coda. The nucleus is a vowel (*), and always has to be there; the onset and coda are groups of consonants, and aren't required (**).



          Second, the maximal onset principle: we want the onset to be as long as possible. So "tube" is /tub/, but "tuba" is /tu.ba/: the /b/ goes with the second syllable, because that makes the onset bigger.



          Third, the syllable structure constraints: certain patterns of consonants aren't allowed together. This one varies by language, but in English, the onset can only be three consonants long at most, and you can't have a stop followed by a fricative in the onset, among many others. So "axle" is /ak.səl/ instead of */a.ksəl/, despite the maximal onset principle. Wikipedia has a good list of these constrains.



          So if you want an algorithm for doing this:




          • Locate all the nuclei (vowels)

          • For each nucleus, work backward, adding sounds to the onset

          • If the onset stops being valid, take a step back, then put all the rest of the sounds in the previous syllable's coda




          (*) Some analyses of English have syllabic resonants, while others treat them as /ə/ plus resonant. In this answer I'm assuming you're using the version with schwa.



          (**) You might also come across the term "rime", which means the nucleus and coda together. The nucleus and coda seem to be more firmly joined than the nucleus and onset, so it's sometimes useful to have a word for them together: in particular, that's how rhyming works.






          share|improve this answer


























          • What a fantastic answer. You're right, I'm trying to programatically translate a word or phrase into Aig, aka Aigy-Paigy. WordsApi provides the syllables and the IPA for a given word. I'm now considering where to insert eɪg. It might take me a while to decode and then code what you've provided but you've given me lots to go on. Thank you.

            – skedly
            Mar 19 at 23:22













          • @skedly You're in luck in that case! That's even easier: find all the vowels (you can identify them on an IPA chart), then insert eɪg before each one. The only trick is figuring out whether two vowels in a row are a diphthong (should be treated as one vowel) or hiatus (should go in separate syllables). But there are only a handful of diphthongs in English, so you can just look those up in a table.

            – Draconis
            Mar 19 at 23:33






          • 3





            I want to add that the "syllable structure constraints" is part, and a big part at that, of the subject called phonotactics. This Wikipedia article may itself be useful, though it doesn't look great, but mainly, I think it may be a useful keyword for further searches if you need to refine your algorithm beyond what this answer provides.

            – LjL
            Mar 20 at 0:49













          • It might be noted that the maximal onset principle is problematic with compound words or continuous speech (which require semantic parsing) -- but that doesn't matter re. Aigy-Paigy which inserts adjacent to the nucleus.

            – amI
            2 days ago
















          16














          This is, in fact, possible! It's not trivial, but it is straightforward.



          Your goal seems to be to break an English word (written in phonemic IPA) into syllables. There's a bit of controversy about how useful the concept of a "syllable" is in English, and a few different theories about what exactly a "syllable" is if it does exist, but the following is pretty widely accepted and should be good for your purpose.



          First, the theory of syllable structure: every syllable looks something like ONC, where O is the onset, N is the nucleus, and C is the coda. The nucleus is a vowel (*), and always has to be there; the onset and coda are groups of consonants, and aren't required (**).



          Second, the maximal onset principle: we want the onset to be as long as possible. So "tube" is /tub/, but "tuba" is /tu.ba/: the /b/ goes with the second syllable, because that makes the onset bigger.



          Third, the syllable structure constraints: certain patterns of consonants aren't allowed together. This one varies by language, but in English, the onset can only be three consonants long at most, and you can't have a stop followed by a fricative in the onset, among many others. So "axle" is /ak.səl/ instead of */a.ksəl/, despite the maximal onset principle. Wikipedia has a good list of these constrains.



          So if you want an algorithm for doing this:




          • Locate all the nuclei (vowels)

          • For each nucleus, work backward, adding sounds to the onset

          • If the onset stops being valid, take a step back, then put all the rest of the sounds in the previous syllable's coda




          (*) Some analyses of English have syllabic resonants, while others treat them as /ə/ plus resonant. In this answer I'm assuming you're using the version with schwa.



          (**) You might also come across the term "rime", which means the nucleus and coda together. The nucleus and coda seem to be more firmly joined than the nucleus and onset, so it's sometimes useful to have a word for them together: in particular, that's how rhyming works.






          share|improve this answer


























          • What a fantastic answer. You're right, I'm trying to programatically translate a word or phrase into Aig, aka Aigy-Paigy. WordsApi provides the syllables and the IPA for a given word. I'm now considering where to insert eɪg. It might take me a while to decode and then code what you've provided but you've given me lots to go on. Thank you.

            – skedly
            Mar 19 at 23:22













          • @skedly You're in luck in that case! That's even easier: find all the vowels (you can identify them on an IPA chart), then insert eɪg before each one. The only trick is figuring out whether two vowels in a row are a diphthong (should be treated as one vowel) or hiatus (should go in separate syllables). But there are only a handful of diphthongs in English, so you can just look those up in a table.

            – Draconis
            Mar 19 at 23:33






          • 3





            I want to add that the "syllable structure constraints" is part, and a big part at that, of the subject called phonotactics. This Wikipedia article may itself be useful, though it doesn't look great, but mainly, I think it may be a useful keyword for further searches if you need to refine your algorithm beyond what this answer provides.

            – LjL
            Mar 20 at 0:49













          • It might be noted that the maximal onset principle is problematic with compound words or continuous speech (which require semantic parsing) -- but that doesn't matter re. Aigy-Paigy which inserts adjacent to the nucleus.

            – amI
            2 days ago














          16












          16








          16







          This is, in fact, possible! It's not trivial, but it is straightforward.



          Your goal seems to be to break an English word (written in phonemic IPA) into syllables. There's a bit of controversy about how useful the concept of a "syllable" is in English, and a few different theories about what exactly a "syllable" is if it does exist, but the following is pretty widely accepted and should be good for your purpose.



          First, the theory of syllable structure: every syllable looks something like ONC, where O is the onset, N is the nucleus, and C is the coda. The nucleus is a vowel (*), and always has to be there; the onset and coda are groups of consonants, and aren't required (**).



          Second, the maximal onset principle: we want the onset to be as long as possible. So "tube" is /tub/, but "tuba" is /tu.ba/: the /b/ goes with the second syllable, because that makes the onset bigger.



          Third, the syllable structure constraints: certain patterns of consonants aren't allowed together. This one varies by language, but in English, the onset can only be three consonants long at most, and you can't have a stop followed by a fricative in the onset, among many others. So "axle" is /ak.səl/ instead of */a.ksəl/, despite the maximal onset principle. Wikipedia has a good list of these constrains.



          So if you want an algorithm for doing this:




          • Locate all the nuclei (vowels)

          • For each nucleus, work backward, adding sounds to the onset

          • If the onset stops being valid, take a step back, then put all the rest of the sounds in the previous syllable's coda




          (*) Some analyses of English have syllabic resonants, while others treat them as /ə/ plus resonant. In this answer I'm assuming you're using the version with schwa.



          (**) You might also come across the term "rime", which means the nucleus and coda together. The nucleus and coda seem to be more firmly joined than the nucleus and onset, so it's sometimes useful to have a word for them together: in particular, that's how rhyming works.






          share|improve this answer















          This is, in fact, possible! It's not trivial, but it is straightforward.



          Your goal seems to be to break an English word (written in phonemic IPA) into syllables. There's a bit of controversy about how useful the concept of a "syllable" is in English, and a few different theories about what exactly a "syllable" is if it does exist, but the following is pretty widely accepted and should be good for your purpose.



          First, the theory of syllable structure: every syllable looks something like ONC, where O is the onset, N is the nucleus, and C is the coda. The nucleus is a vowel (*), and always has to be there; the onset and coda are groups of consonants, and aren't required (**).



          Second, the maximal onset principle: we want the onset to be as long as possible. So "tube" is /tub/, but "tuba" is /tu.ba/: the /b/ goes with the second syllable, because that makes the onset bigger.



          Third, the syllable structure constraints: certain patterns of consonants aren't allowed together. This one varies by language, but in English, the onset can only be three consonants long at most, and you can't have a stop followed by a fricative in the onset, among many others. So "axle" is /ak.səl/ instead of */a.ksəl/, despite the maximal onset principle. Wikipedia has a good list of these constrains.



          So if you want an algorithm for doing this:




          • Locate all the nuclei (vowels)

          • For each nucleus, work backward, adding sounds to the onset

          • If the onset stops being valid, take a step back, then put all the rest of the sounds in the previous syllable's coda




          (*) Some analyses of English have syllabic resonants, while others treat them as /ə/ plus resonant. In this answer I'm assuming you're using the version with schwa.



          (**) You might also come across the term "rime", which means the nucleus and coda together. The nucleus and coda seem to be more firmly joined than the nucleus and onset, so it's sometimes useful to have a word for them together: in particular, that's how rhyming works.







          share|improve this answer














          share|improve this answer



          share|improve this answer








          edited 2 days ago

























          answered Mar 19 at 23:10









          DraconisDraconis

          12.4k12053




          12.4k12053













          • What a fantastic answer. You're right, I'm trying to programatically translate a word or phrase into Aig, aka Aigy-Paigy. WordsApi provides the syllables and the IPA for a given word. I'm now considering where to insert eɪg. It might take me a while to decode and then code what you've provided but you've given me lots to go on. Thank you.

            – skedly
            Mar 19 at 23:22













          • @skedly You're in luck in that case! That's even easier: find all the vowels (you can identify them on an IPA chart), then insert eɪg before each one. The only trick is figuring out whether two vowels in a row are a diphthong (should be treated as one vowel) or hiatus (should go in separate syllables). But there are only a handful of diphthongs in English, so you can just look those up in a table.

            – Draconis
            Mar 19 at 23:33






          • 3





            I want to add that the "syllable structure constraints" is part, and a big part at that, of the subject called phonotactics. This Wikipedia article may itself be useful, though it doesn't look great, but mainly, I think it may be a useful keyword for further searches if you need to refine your algorithm beyond what this answer provides.

            – LjL
            Mar 20 at 0:49













          • It might be noted that the maximal onset principle is problematic with compound words or continuous speech (which require semantic parsing) -- but that doesn't matter re. Aigy-Paigy which inserts adjacent to the nucleus.

            – amI
            2 days ago



















          • What a fantastic answer. You're right, I'm trying to programatically translate a word or phrase into Aig, aka Aigy-Paigy. WordsApi provides the syllables and the IPA for a given word. I'm now considering where to insert eɪg. It might take me a while to decode and then code what you've provided but you've given me lots to go on. Thank you.

            – skedly
            Mar 19 at 23:22













          • @skedly You're in luck in that case! That's even easier: find all the vowels (you can identify them on an IPA chart), then insert eɪg before each one. The only trick is figuring out whether two vowels in a row are a diphthong (should be treated as one vowel) or hiatus (should go in separate syllables). But there are only a handful of diphthongs in English, so you can just look those up in a table.

            – Draconis
            Mar 19 at 23:33






          • 3





            I want to add that the "syllable structure constraints" is part, and a big part at that, of the subject called phonotactics. This Wikipedia article may itself be useful, though it doesn't look great, but mainly, I think it may be a useful keyword for further searches if you need to refine your algorithm beyond what this answer provides.

            – LjL
            Mar 20 at 0:49













          • It might be noted that the maximal onset principle is problematic with compound words or continuous speech (which require semantic parsing) -- but that doesn't matter re. Aigy-Paigy which inserts adjacent to the nucleus.

            – amI
            2 days ago

















          What a fantastic answer. You're right, I'm trying to programatically translate a word or phrase into Aig, aka Aigy-Paigy. WordsApi provides the syllables and the IPA for a given word. I'm now considering where to insert eɪg. It might take me a while to decode and then code what you've provided but you've given me lots to go on. Thank you.

          – skedly
          Mar 19 at 23:22







          What a fantastic answer. You're right, I'm trying to programatically translate a word or phrase into Aig, aka Aigy-Paigy. WordsApi provides the syllables and the IPA for a given word. I'm now considering where to insert eɪg. It might take me a while to decode and then code what you've provided but you've given me lots to go on. Thank you.

          – skedly
          Mar 19 at 23:22















          @skedly You're in luck in that case! That's even easier: find all the vowels (you can identify them on an IPA chart), then insert eɪg before each one. The only trick is figuring out whether two vowels in a row are a diphthong (should be treated as one vowel) or hiatus (should go in separate syllables). But there are only a handful of diphthongs in English, so you can just look those up in a table.

          – Draconis
          Mar 19 at 23:33





          @skedly You're in luck in that case! That's even easier: find all the vowels (you can identify them on an IPA chart), then insert eɪg before each one. The only trick is figuring out whether two vowels in a row are a diphthong (should be treated as one vowel) or hiatus (should go in separate syllables). But there are only a handful of diphthongs in English, so you can just look those up in a table.

          – Draconis
          Mar 19 at 23:33




          3




          3





          I want to add that the "syllable structure constraints" is part, and a big part at that, of the subject called phonotactics. This Wikipedia article may itself be useful, though it doesn't look great, but mainly, I think it may be a useful keyword for further searches if you need to refine your algorithm beyond what this answer provides.

          – LjL
          Mar 20 at 0:49







          I want to add that the "syllable structure constraints" is part, and a big part at that, of the subject called phonotactics. This Wikipedia article may itself be useful, though it doesn't look great, but mainly, I think it may be a useful keyword for further searches if you need to refine your algorithm beyond what this answer provides.

          – LjL
          Mar 20 at 0:49















          It might be noted that the maximal onset principle is problematic with compound words or continuous speech (which require semantic parsing) -- but that doesn't matter re. Aigy-Paigy which inserts adjacent to the nucleus.

          – amI
          2 days ago





          It might be noted that the maximal onset principle is problematic with compound words or continuous speech (which require semantic parsing) -- but that doesn't matter re. Aigy-Paigy which inserts adjacent to the nucleus.

          – amI
          2 days ago










          skedly is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.










          draft saved

          draft discarded


















          skedly is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.













          skedly is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.












          skedly is a new contributor. Be nice, and check out our Code of Conduct.
















          Thanks for contributing an answer to Linguistics Stack Exchange!


          • Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!

          But avoid



          • Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.

          • Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.


          To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.




          draft saved


          draft discarded














          StackExchange.ready(
          function () {
          StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2flinguistics.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f30933%2fhow-to-split-ipa-spelling-into-syllables%23new-answer', 'question_page');
          }
          );

          Post as a guest















          Required, but never shown





















































          Required, but never shown














          Required, but never shown












          Required, but never shown







          Required, but never shown

































          Required, but never shown














          Required, but never shown












          Required, but never shown







          Required, but never shown







          Popular posts from this blog

          Plaza Victoria

          In PowerPoint, is there a keyboard shortcut for bulleted / numbered list?

          How to put 3 figures in Latex with 2 figures side by side and 1 below these side by side images but in...