Phonex Constructs

A summary of all possible phonex constructs.

Table 1. Phone matchers
Construct Matches
x The phone x. Matches regardless of diacritics.
x_y The compound phone consisting of phones matched by x and y.
\unnnn The phone with unicode value nnnn as a hexadecimal number.
\* The * cover symbol.
\. The . syllable boundary marker.
\+ The + compound word marker.
\^ The ^ intra-word pause maker.
's' or "s" The phone with text that matches the regular expression s (exact text including diacritics)
{f0, f1..., fn} The phone with features f0 ... fn
{} Any phone (empty feature set)
σ Syllable, or the remainder of (see Syllable Matcher)
σ/X..Y/ Portion of a syllable denoted by constituent type ids X and Y
Table 2. Grouping
Construct Matches
(X) X, as a capturing group
(X|Y) X or Y, as a capturing group
(?=X) X, as a non-capturing group
(name=X) X, as a named, capturing group. name may consist of letters and numbers, but must start with a letter.
\n The content matched by group n
(?<X) Look behind and match X as a non-capturing group
(?>X) Look ahead and match X as a non-capturing group
Table 3. Phone classes
Construct Matches
[xyz] x, y, or z
[^xyz] Not x, y, or z
Table 4. Predefined phone classes
Construct Matches
. Anything
\c Any consonant
\g Any glide
\v Any vowel
\p Any intra-word pause (i.e., ^)
\P Any inter-word pause (e.g., (.), (..), …)
\w Any consonant or vowel.
\W Any non-word character (i.e., any character not matched by \w, e.g., same as [^\w])
\s Any stress marker
\t Any tone number or tone melody
Table 5. Boundary matchers
Construct Matches
^ Beginning of input
$ End of input
\b A word boundary including beginning of input, end of input, and whitespace.
\S A syllable boundary including 'forced' syllable boundaries such as beginning of input, end of input, and whitespace; and, if syllable constituent types are available, 'soft' syllable boundaries detected at syllable edges.
Table 6. Plug-ins
Construct Matches
x:plugin('s') x if, and only if, the plug-in matcher identified by plugin matches with expression s
x&y x if, and only if, a diacritic attached to x matches the expression y. (e.g., h&{aspirated}will match all 'h's with aspirated diacritics.)
xː Same as x&{long}.
xˑ Same as x&{half-long}.
x!s x if, and only if, the syllable stress of the phone matches s. Prefix s with - to negate (e.g., !-1 means without primary stress).
Table 7. Quantifiers (greedy)
Construct Matches
X? X, once or not at all
X* X, zero or more times
X+ X, one or more times
X<n> X, exactly n times
X<n,> X, at least n times
X<,n> X, zero to n times
X<n,m> X, at least n but not more than m times
Table 8. Quantifiers (reluctant)
Construct Matches
X?? X, once or not at all
X*? X, zero or more times
X+? X, one or more times
X<n>? X, exactly n times
X<n,>? X, at least n times
X<,n>? X, zero to n times
X<n,m>? X, at least n but not more than m times
Table 9. Quantifiers (possessive)
Construct Matches
X?+ X, once or not at all
X*+ X, zero or more times
X++ X, one or more times
X<n>+ X, exactly n times
X<n,>+ X, at least n times
X<,n>+ X, zero to n times
X<n,m>+ X, at least n but not more than m times
Table 10. Back references
Construct Matches
\n Same content as group n
\{name} Same content as named group
\{^n} Different content from group n
\{^name} Different content from named group
\{#name} Same content as named group (ignoring diacritics)
\{name}[n] Element at index n from named group (0-based)
\{name}[$] Last element from named group
\{name}[n_] First part of compound phone at index n
\{name}[_n] Second part of compound phone at index n
{features({name})} Phone with features matching named group. features is a dimension function string composed of: P/p (place), M/m (manner), V/v (voicing), H/h (height), B/b (backness), T/t (tenseness), R/r (rounding). E.g., {PV({#C})} matches place + voicing of group C.
Table 11. Aligned phonex
Construct Matches
X↔Y X in target aligned with Y in actual
X↔∅ X in target aligned with a gap (deletion)
∅↔Y Gap in target aligned with Y in actual (insertion)
(X)↔(Y) Group X aligned with group Y
X↔\{name} X aligned with content of named group
X↔{features({name})} X aligned with features of named group
Table 12. Multi-expression union
Construct Meaning
expr1 || expr2 Union of matches from independent expressions
Table 13. Flags
Construct Meaning
/a Requires alignment (set automatically when ↔ or ∅ is used)
/f Deferred matching (set automatically for forward references in aligned expressions)
Table 14. Comments
Construct Meaning
/* ... */ Block comment
// ... Line comment (to end of line)