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 this dictionary has been used for TRINPsite poems
and songs, such as
Saxifrax
(with an aural analysis). At the moment all twenty consonants which can
play a role in alliteration and all fifteen vowels are accessible to the general public.
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
48 years after the end of the Second World War as a tool in the
automatic generation of computer poetry and 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:
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:
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:
turn all capitals into small letters;
delete all dots (.) and hyphens (-);
replace any = sign or colon (:) with a hyphen;
replace any + sign with a space;
replace |gz| or |ks| with x, and |kw| with qu;
delete all other vertical bars with the letters in between;
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.
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