21.
Phonotactics III (with
rhyming dictionary)
Note: Make
sure that you have the Lucida
Sans Unicode font installed in your computer so that the IPA symbols will
display correctly.
To
do the chapter 4 exercises of the Ladefoged text, we need to find words with
certain endings or rhymes, i.e. nucleus + coda. A regular dictionary
is arranged alphabetically, according to the order of letters starting from
the beginning of the word. A rhyming dictionary matches the
last part of a word to find rhyming words. For two words to rhyme,
they should share the same vowel in their final stressed syllable,
and all sounds after this vowel must be the same as well. A rhyming dictionary
can make it easier for us to find words ending in certain specified
sounds.
Here we will throw in a few relevant and hopefully
interesting literary notions and terms: single syllable rhymes like mat
and pat are called masculine
rhyme; rhymes of a stressed plus unstressed syllable, e.g. middle
and riddle, are called feminine
rhyme; three-syllable or trisyllabic rhyme is called triple rhyme,
e.g. practical and tactical
(this kind of rhyme is usually used for comic effect); and a rhyme in which
at least one of the rhymes extends over more than one word is called mosaic
rhyme, e.g. pneumonia
and phone ya. We are mainly
interested in syllable structure and thus masculine rhyme; but these literary
terms for types of rhyme are useful ones to know.
Below follows a link to a free downloadable
rhyming dictionary with over 100,000 words (946K) from a company called AnalogX
(AnalogX develops and makes available lots of interesting audio-related freeware
– check their other offerings), called simply Rhyme:
http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Audio/rhyme/Freeware.htm
This dictionary is mainly intended for use by
songwriters and poets, but you will find that it is a useful tool in your
study of phonetics and phonology as well. You need to first enter a word to
rhyme, then the number of phonemes and syllables you want matched. You must
use regular English spelling rather than IPA to input the sounds, but you
need only provide one possible spelling and the dictionary will match words
with various spellings but the same sound. For example, if you input ate
you will get words spelled with ait,
like gait
and bait in addition to words like rate.
For this example, choose 'Reverse - Rhyme from right to left', '2' phonemes,
'1' syllable. This way you will also get word matches with more than one syllable;
if you choose 'Reverse - Matching syllables', you will get only one-syllable
word matches. Be sure to input a real existing word rather than just a final
rhyme; for example, you will find no matches for ait,
but there will be lots for gait.
This is a minor drawback since you have to know an existing word to find the
matches and cannot just input a bare rhyme, but with a little resourcefulness
it is largely overcomeable. To find matches
for [ɔɪn] try inputting
coin. You can type in little
for [ɪɾl̩] rhymes.
"Rhyme" can also find words that match
the beginning sounds of your chosen word, much like you could do with a conventional
dictionary. For example, if you input play
and choose to match '3' phonemes and '1' syllable, and click on 'Forward -
Rhyme from left to right', you will get matches such as place,
placate, plague,
plane and
plate. You will need to play around with "Rhyme" a
bit to find out how to get it to give you the output you want. Remember to
have fun while doing this!
If you'd rather not install new software, you
can use one or more of these convenient and easy-to-use online rhyme dictionaries:
http://www.rhymer.com/
http://www.writeexpress.com/online2.html
Here is a link to a page with some very useful online word
pattern matching functions, originally meant as tools for playing the crossword
board game Scrabble.
With 'Pattern match', you can find words similar
to the one that you input by using a period '.' for a letter or letters you
wish to be replaced, e.g. ca.
will yield words such as cab,
cad,
cam,
cat,
cap. .lea. will call
up words such as bleak,
blear,
bleat,
clear,
cleat,
fleas,
plead,
pleas, together with longer words like pleasure
and released. Click on 'HELP'
for other search methods, and to learn a bit about how PERL regular expressions
work. 'Words in letters' is an anagram
function which will give you a list of words spelled with the same letters
(or some of them) in different orders. outside,
for example, will give results such as tedious,
suited,
studio,
ousted,
duties,
tides,
and edits. Both of
these pattern search functions can show you the common phonotactic patterns
of English words for given letters/sounds. Note that these lists will also
include many infrequently used words. Click on the link for more useful puzzle
solving tools from Wordplays.com.
http://www.a2zwordfinder.com/index.html
The next page has some practice exercises for
you to try your new phonotactic tools out on.
Next: Phonotactics
IV: Practice Exercises (with PC
desktop dictionary)
on
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