Percent Diacritics Correct (PDC)

The Percent Diacritics Correct (PDC) analysis compares diacritics on aligned IPA Target and IPA Actual phones. The base phone is replaced by a placeholder before the comparison, so phone identity does not determine whether a diacritic is correct.

Use PDC to measure the accuracy of all diacritics or a selected set of diacritics on consonants, vowels, all phones, or a custom Phonex-defined phone set.

Before you begin

Check word boundaries and phone alignment between IPA Target and IPA Actual. The analysis searches aligned words and assigns results to the speaker of each record.

Parameters

Table 1. PDC parameters
Parameter	Default	Effect
Report Title	Percent Diacritics Correct (PDC)	Sets the title of the generated report.
Combine results for all selected participants	Off	Combines the selected participants before calculating summaries and pattern tables.
Report type	All phones	Selects all phones, consonants, vowels, or Other (custom). The custom choice exposes a required Phonex phone expression.
Diacritic Options	Do not ignore diacritics	Selects which diacritics remain available for counting and comparison.
Search by	Word	Calculates PDC for each aligned target/actual word pair.

Standard result, word, syllable, tier, additional-tier-data, and participant filters can narrow or extend the aligned IPA Domains query. See Common Query Parameters and Phonex.

Figure 1. Percent Diacritics Correct (PDC) Parameters

How PDC is calculated

Only phones that retain at least one diacritic after applying Diacritic Options contribute to the measure. A target diacritic pattern is correct when the complete diacritic pattern on its aligned actual phone is identical. A different or missing pattern is substituted; an unaligned target pattern is deleted; and an unaligned actual pattern is epenthesized.

PDC = # Correct / (# Correct + # Substituted + # Deleted + # Epenthesized) × 100.

# Target and # Actual count qualifying diacritic-bearing phones on their respective tiers. They are informative totals; the denominator is the sum of the four outcome counts.

Report output

Table 2. PDC report tables
Section or table	Contents
Summary	An all-participants table with one row per speaker and a total row. Each participant section repeats # Target, # Actual, the four outcomes, and PDC by session with a total row.
Diacritic Patterns	Target and actual diacritic-pattern pairs, frequency by session, and their correct, substituted, deleted, and epenthesized totals.
PDC by Word	Every aligned word result with source-record information, IPA Target and IPA Actual, word index, counts, and PDC.