Unicode Phonology Assistant version 3.0 (uPA)

Currently under development: Expected beta release in November 2006

This web page provides information about the current development of Phonology Assistant 3.0. This new version of Phonology Assistant provides support for Unicode. In addition, uPA is designed to support Speech Analyzer, Toolbox and FieldWorks Language Explorer users with a phonology tool that works interactively with the data stored in those applications.

Phonology Assistant creates consonant and vowel inventory charts and assists the user in searching through the data corpus to do phonetics and phonology.

Requirements:

Windows 2000, XP or greater
256 MB RAM
800 X 600 video graphics
20 MB free space on hard drive

Features:

Source data from Toolbox, FieldWorks, or Speech Analyzer

New! Use data transcribed with the Unicode IPA character set from:
- Speech Analyzer files with transcriptions.
- Toolbox databases (interlinear and non-interlinear). More info.
- FieldWorks databases. FieldWorks supports capturing phonetic data in the lexeme form or as a pronunciation. Two exports are provided for use with Phonology Assistant. More info.
- Any application that can export data to XML and apply an XSL transform to conform to PAXML.
- Any combination of the above.
- Note: Unicode Phonology Assistant does not have a data corpus editor. It is assumed that users will use one of the above programs.
- Unicode Phonology Assistant can jump to the source record in any of the above SIL programs so that the user can view and edit the source record. When changes are made and saved in the source data, uPA automatically updates charts and queries to reflect the changes.

Uncertain data

New! Transcribe uncertainties in your data corpus and see uncertainties in your corpus, charts and queries.
- uPA indicates to the user when source data has unusual characteristics the user should be aware of, in this case, an uncertain transcription.
- Uncertainties can optionally be accounted for in charts and queries.

Ambiguous items or sequences

New! Experiment with potentially ambiguous items or sequences without changing your transcription.
- Example: if your source transcription contains [ts], you may want to temporarily treat it as [t͡s ] in your charts and queries to test if it is best treated as one or two consonants.

Charting

View a chart of all consonant or vowel phones found in a given phonetic data corpus.
View a histogram to see frequencies of phones in the data corpus.
Add, delete or modify columns and rows of phonetic charts and place phones where you want them to appear in the chart.
See all phonetic data items containing a particular phonetic segment and sort preceding and following contexts from left to right or right to left.

Phonetic searching

View multiple queries at once for easy comparison of phones in their environments.
Create simple or complex phonological queries.
- Queries can be typed in directly (or pasted from an email from your linguistic consultant!)
- Point and click using the Search Pattern builder
- Create AND / OR queries with a variety of wildcard characters
- Diacritics, stress, syllable breaks, etc. can optionally be ignored in searches.
Use predefined articulatory or binary features in searches.
Create user-defined classes or features for use in searches.
Sort by target, before or after environments

Distribution charts

Currently under early development (check back soon)

Export

Export charts and query results as HTML or RTF for incorporation into web pages or pasting into word processors.

Sound

New! Listen to source sound files from Speech Analyzer transcriptions, or if source is indicated in Toolbox or FieldWorks database.
Display Speech Analyzer pitch plots and use Speech Analyzer playback capabilities including decreasing speed playback from within Phonology Assistant.