TRINPsite , 50.30.1 - 56.02.4 >=< Poet/VocAll.htm >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>=TO=TRINPSITE=INDEX=<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Machiel Vincent van Mechelen 56th Northern Early Yule VOCABULARY OF ALLITERATION vo-CA.b.u-LA.r.y or vo-CA.b.u.l.a.r.y OF a-LLI.t.e-RA.ti.on with access to all 35 staves: |M|, |N|, |O|-|OO|, |P|, |R|, |S|, |SH|, |T|, |TH|, |U|, |V|, |W|, |Z|, |A|-|AW|, |B|, |D|, |DH|, |E|-|EI|, |F|, |G|, |H|, |I|, |J|, |K|, |L| (in rotating alphabetical order) INTRODUCTION This Vocabulary of Alliteration is a new aid in writing poems and songs (and in the study of phonetic or phonemic syllable divisions). Alliteration is one of several aural devices in literature making use of the repetition of single sounds or groups of sounds. It is quite often believed to be nothing else than the repetition of word-initial sounds, especially consonants. For such rough and ready alliteration a special dictionary would hardly be needed. However, if alliteration is, in a more sophisticated and traditional fashion, interpreted as the repetition of speech sounds at the beginning of syllables, and of stressed syllables only, then word-initial consonance or assonance need not be alliteration and vice versa. The first syllables of words often do not receive primary stress in the present language, not even secondary stress, and therefore specially prepared lists of words of which the stressed syllables start with the same sound or sounds will be of interest to anyone studying or creating aural effects and imagery in verbal communication. From its very beginning (48 years after the end of the Second World War) this dictionary has been used for TRINPsite poems and songs, such as Saxifrax (with an aural analysis). Now, seven years later (on 55.49.4), all twenty consonants which can play a role in alliteration and all fifteen vowels have become accessible to the general public on the Internet. WORDS AND PHRASES ENTERED The words and phrases entered in this dictionary have been selected and will continue to be selected on the basis of one or more of the following considerations: * alliteration (word- or phrase-internal): words and phrases of which a primary-stressed syllable alliterates with another (primary- or secondary-stressed) syllable of the same word or phrase. Examples of words with internal alliteration are intuition (IN.t.u-I.ti.on) and fact-finding (FACT=FIN.d.ing); examples of phrases of several words with internal alliteration are past compare (PAST com-PARE) and go against the grain (GO a-GAINST the GRAIN). * basic vocabulary: words that belong to a basic vocabulary of about 2,000 words and whose first syllable is not stressed. For example, attack (a-TTACK) under |T| and upon (u-PON) under |P|. * dialectal or pronunciational variation: words that have a different stress pattern in different dialects or even within one dialect or sociolect. For example, hegemony, which is pronounced with primary stress on the first syllable (and entered as both HE.g.e-MO.n.y and HE.g.e.m.o.n.y under |H|) or with primary stress on the second syllable (entered as he-GE.m.o.n.y under both |D| and |G|). * grammatical interest: words that show an interesting syllabification or 'stress behavior', such as phrasal verbs or words whose stress pattern depends on their grammatical category or number (singular vs plural). For example, the phrasal verb zero in (ZE.r.o IN) under |I|; or compound under |K| (COM.p.ound) as a noun or adjective, and under |P| (com-POUND) as a verb. * occurrence in TRINPsite works: this dictionary was started as a tool in the creation of computer poems and has been made public as part of TRINPsite. * poetic or literary quality or usage: all literary words and phrases, and all words that have a literary meaning or usage as well should eventually be included in this dictionary. For example, bellicose (BE.ll.i.c.ose); assuage (a-SSUAGE), which may be considered formal or literary; and topless (TOP-less), which is a poetic word in the sense of very high. * spelling: words spelled with an initial letter that does not immediately and clearly show the first sound in pronunciation. For example, knee (KNEE) under |N|, not |K|, and wrong (WRONG) under |R|, not |W|. Fortunately, alliteration is not burdened with such a spurious concept as 'eye-rhyme'. The repetition of orthographical consonants and/or vowels is in itself neither proof of rime nor of alliteration, and has had no immediate bearing on the selection of words and phrases entered here. PHONEMIC SYMBOLS USED The pronunciation symbols chosen for this dictionary consist of simple, ordinary letters or combinations of such letters: lower case if unstressed, and upper case if stressed. When applied to whole words these symbols constitute a unique double-case phonemic transcription system -- unique in that it does not make use of lower-case type characters only, but of capitals as well. In the following lists, however, this double-case transcription is confined to single sounds and to syllabification and stress patterns, while the standard spelling of words and phrases is maintained as much as possible. Where deviation from the standard spelling could not be avoided the phonemic symbol is put between vertical bars. Ideally, one phoneme (the unit of speech used to express and recognize meaning) should correspond with one character, but such a one-to-one correspondence cannot be achieved with ordinary letters. Therefore, it is important that, in cases in which a phoneme is represented by two characters, the speech sounds represented by those characters separately never occur in immediate succession within the same phonemic syllable. Two characters which would otherwise be separated by a syllable division must stand for one sound. In this dictionary there are three two-letter symbols for consonants. |TH| is the symbol for the first sound in thin, while |DH| is that for the first sound in then, a difference similar to the one between |T| and |D|. |SH| is used as may be expected, unlike, perhaps, the one-letter symbol |J| for the first consonant in a word like yes. The one- or two-letter symbols for vowels correspond with the standard spelling in words such as the following: AH, AI (a kind of sloth), [S]AW, [B]E[D], [S]EE, [V]EI[N], I[N], [N]O[T] (if the O is not consistently replaced with AH), OH, OI[L], [T]OO and [P]U[T]. The vowel in can is transcribed as |AE|; the one in out as |AU|. The symbol used for a schwa (the first vowel in ago) is |a|; that for its stressed counterpart (the vowel in love and bus) is |A|. The words and phrases in this dictionary are represented in a way which is needed and which suffices to show their occurrence and possible use in alliteration. On the one hand this representation takes more pronunciational features into account than a standard spelling, on the other hand it looks more like a standard spelling than a phonetic, or even phonemic transcription, and is therefore easier to read for those familiar with only ordinary orthography. The following table should make this clear for the words vocabulary, of and alliteration: STANDARD SPELLINGS REPRESENTATION IN THIS DICTIONARY DOUBLE-CASE PHONEMIC TRANSCRIPTION VOCABULARY Vocabulary vocabulary vo-Ca.b.u-LA.r.y vo-CA.b.u.l.a.r.y voh-, va-KAE.b.ja-LE.r.ee va-, voh-KAE.b.ju.l.a.r.i OF, Of, of OF, of AHV, OV, av ALLITERATION Alliteration alliteration a-LLI.t.e-RA.ti.on a-LI.t.a-REI.sh.an For an illustration of the use of the symbols of this dictionary in a complete phonemic transcription see the aural analyses of the song Ananda and of the poem Whereas Creatures .... TRINPsite also features a list of Model terms in which the above phonemic characters are used to show how these special words must or may be pronounced. ORDER OF STAVES Almost any phoneme can be a stave, that is, an alliterating sound binding together two or more syllables in one or more words. (It is only indirectly that a stave may be said to bind together two or more words.) These staves are ordered alphabetically here on the basis of the one or two letters which are used to represent each one of them. Starting from |A| the order is therefore: A, AE, AH, AI, AU, AW, B, D, DH, E, EE, EI, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, OH, OI, OO, P, R, S, SH, T, TH, U, V, W and Z Because the phonemes |NG| (as in long) and |ZH| (or |zh|, as in garage) never occur at the beginning of a syllable, they cannot be staves and do not play a role in alliteration. Note that |J| stands for one consonant sound and that the orthographical  j in a word like  joy stands for two consonant sounds: |D| and |ZH|. Similarly, the ch in a word like change stands for |T| and |SH|. Words of which a stressed syllable starts with such sounds are listed under |D| and |T| respectively. SYLLABIFICATION, STRESS AND SPELLING SYMBOLS - sharp division between syllables . one of two fuzzy boundaries between two syllables, the consonantal sound(s) between the dots being their overlap CAP (part of a) stressed syllable (which is not at the same time part of another, unstressed syllable) | | beginning and end of one or two sounds represented in a way deviating from the standard spelling, usually x replaced with |k-S|, |K.s| or |g-Z|, sometimes a sound not represented in the standard spelling at all, such as |J| or |W| + space between two words pronounced together (in the variant concerned) : often or always a hyphen in the standard spelling = sharp, hyphened division between syllables of one word (the equivalent of -:) $ the following letter must or may be capitalized in the standard spelling ABBREVIATIONS BETWEEN SQUARE BRACKETS adj as an adjective adv as an adverb l word which is (especially) literary or poetic &l word which has a literary meaning or use as well n as a noun pre as a preposition v as a verb var one of several dialectal or merely pronunciational variants (which do not immediately succeed each other in this dictionary) RULES FOR DERIVING THE OR A STANDARD SPELLING As the function of this global dictionary is to show which words or expressions alliterate on the basis of their syllabification and placement of stress, deviation from the standard orthography could not always be avoided. Yet, of any entry in this dictionary anyone can find out the 'correct' spelling by following a number of simple, fixed rules. However, they must be applied to the complete form of an entry. This means that it must contain, first of all, all syllables and overlaps between syllables. Thus, in e|k-S|CLU.s.ive/.i.vist the complete forms are e|k-S|CLU.s.ive and e|k-S|CLU.s.i.v.ist. Furthermore, entries containing an apostrophe (') which represents the optional elision of a vowel, resulting in a reduction of the number of syllables, will have to be replaced with the preceding form in which that vowel is both written and pronounced. Thus, the complete form of both DI.ff'.rent and DI.ff.er'nt is DI.ff.e.r.ent, with the possible exception of poetry where the apostrophe may be maintained to show the number of syllables with which such a word should be pronounced. Given these complete forms (with or without an apostrophe) the algorithm to derive the or a standard spelling is: 1. turn all capitals into small letters; 2. delete all dots (.) and hyphens (-); 3. replace any = sign or colon (:) with a hyphen; 4. replace any + sign with a space; 5. replace |gz| or |ks| with x, and |kw| with qu; 6. delete all other vertical bars with the letters in between; 7. replace any letter preceded by a $ sign with the corresponding capital letter. OTHER WORKS OF LITERARY OR LINGUISTIC INTEREST Those interested in literature may also want to visit: * Poetry a nodal file with access to TRINPsite poems * Short Stories a nodal file with access to TRINPsite short stories Those interested in the spoken or written language and (philosophical) linguistics may also want to read: * Language as Means and as Product a division of the Book of Instruments * The Choice of Words and Names a chapter of the Book of Symbols In The values of linguistic systems, the second section of Language as Means and as Product, it is stated that where there are two or more options with respect to grammatical form or spelling, the most regular (or least irregular) and the most phonetic (or least unphonetic) variant is given priority, regardless of its being perhaps traditionally less frequently used in a particular part of the world or even worldwide. It is this same policy which is followed in this dictionary and which should explain why, for example, advertize, rime and thru are entered first, while advertise, rhyme and through are added as alternatives. ©MVVM, 48-56 ASWW >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>=TO=TRINPSITE=INDEX=<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Stichting DNI Foundation www.xs4all.nl/~in TRINPSITE [TO TRINPSITE MAIN DOCUMENT] TOP OF TREE Plain-text copy Poetry