American English Phoneme Representation
This is a brief introduction to the use and implementation of the SAPI phoneme representations.
Symbolic and Numerical Representation
Application developers can create pronunciations for words that are not currently in the lexicon by using the English phonemes represented in the following table. The phoneme set is composed of a symbolic phonetic representation (SYM).
The application developer will be able to enter the SYM representation to create the pronunciation using the XML PRON tag, or by creating a new lexicon entry. Each phoneme entry should be space delimited.
| Tag | Description |
|---|---|
| PRON SYM | Tag used to insert a pronunciation using symbolic representation. |
Example: pronunciation for "hello":
<PRON SYM = "h eh l ow"/>
For improved accuracy, the primary (1), secondary (2) stress markers, and the syllabic markers (-) can be added to the pronunciation.
Example: pronunciation for "hello" using the primary stress (1) and syllabic (-) markers:
<PRON SYM = "h eh - l ow 1"/>American English Phoneme Table
| SYM | Example | PhoneID |
|---|---|---|
| - | syllable boundary (hyphen) | 1 |
| ! | Sentence terminator (exclamation mark) | 2 |
| & | word boundary | 3 |
| , | Sentence terminator (comma) | 4 |
| . | Sentence terminator (period) | 5 |
| ? | Sentence terminator (question mark) | 6 |
| _ | Silence (underscore) | 7 |
| 1 | Primary stress | 8 |
| 2 | Secondary stress | 9 |
| aa | father | 10 |
| ae | cat | 11 |
| ah | cut | 12 |
| ao | dog | 13 |
| aw | foul | 14 |
| ax | ago | 15 |
| ay | bite | 16 |
| b | big | 17 |
| ch | chin | 18 |
| d | dig | 19 |
| dh | then | 20 |
| eh | pet | 21 |
| er | fur | 22 |
| ey | ate | 23 |
| f | fork | 24 |
| g | gut | 25 |
| h | help | 26 |
| ih | fill | 27 |
| iy | feel | 28 |
| jh | joy | 29 |
| k | cut | 30 |
| l | lid | 31 |
| m | mat | 32 |
| n | no | 33 |
| ng | sing | 34 |
| ow | go | 35 |
| oy | toy | 36 |
| p | put | 37 |
| r | red | 38 |
| s | sit | 39 |
| sh | she | 40 |
| t | talk | 41 |
| th | thin | 42 |
| uh | book | 43 |
| uw | too | 44 |
| v | vat | 45 |
| w | with | 46 |
| y | yard | 47 |
| z | zap | 48 |
| zh | pleasure | 49 |
Please see International Phonemes for information on other phoneme sets.