PRO: is the Pronunciation field
1. Explanation
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* Stress: There are three levels of stress, PRIMARY, SECONDARY, and UNSTRESSED.
* Syllables with primary stress are preceded by a '1', syllables with secondary stress are preceded by a '2', and unstressed syllables are preceded by a '0'. All monosyllabic words occurring in isolation are listed with '1' stress, even if they are usually unstressed in actual speech (eg. 'and', 'of', 'an'). Compound words have a standard '1 2 ' stress pattern (eg. 'headbord', bookcase'). ALL syllables are marked for stress, even unstressed syllables.
* Phrasal entries are fully specified for pronunciation and stress. (You'll notice that most standard dictionaries indicate stress only for phrasal entries.)
* Alternate pronunciations are entered on separate lines.
* Entries for prefixes, suffixes and most abbreviations are not assigned pronunciation.
* The English syllabic R (eg. mattER, gIRl) is rendered as '*r' in unstressed syllables & as 'uhr' in stressed syllables. For example, 'girl' is transcribed as 1guhrl', whereas 'matter' is transcribed as 1mae 0t*r'.
* Words like 'wear' and 'war', in which an 'r' follows a mid vowel, are transcribed with 'e' and 'o' vowel nuclei respectively, even though the vowel is lowered/laxed before 'r'. We thus have 'wer' for 'wear' & 'wor' for 'war'. Many dictionaries represent this lax variant as 'e' or 'o' with a caret over it.
Transcription system for The Wordsmyth English DIcitonary-Thesaurus pronunciations.
Symbol:
As
in:
- b
But
- p laP
- d Dog
- t Tip;
maTTer
- g taG
- k Keep;
Calm
- v neVer
- f Fun
- z Zebra;
noiSe
- s SenSe
- h Head
- m raM
- n Now
- r Red
- l yeLLow
- y Yam
- w Won
- dh hiTHer
- th Thistle
- zh leiSure
- sh huSH
- j John
- ch Chair
- ng siNG;
Finger
- i fEEt;
bEAt
- I bIt
- e sAY;
lAte
- eh bEt
- ae bAt
- a hOt
- aw cAUght;
lAW
- o hOme
- U fOOt
- u lOOm;
resolUte
- uh bUt
- ai bIte
- au hOW
- oy bOIl
- E (schwa)
mittEn (occurs in unstressed syll. only)
- ih (barred
I) hopelEss (occurs in unstressed syll. only)
- kh baCH
- oe bOEUf
bourgignon