Phone Matchers

Various methods of matching phones using phonex 2.0.

As outlined in the Phonex Constructs section, there are several methods for matching phones in phonex. This section describes these methods in more detail.

Character matchers

Character matchers are defined by simply typing the character for the desired phone. Character matchers will match any phone with the specified base-character - regardless of attached diacritics. Characters may also be written using their unicode values.

Table 1. Character matcher examples
Expression	Matches
`a`	The vowel a
`ba`	The consonant b followed by the vowel a
`\u0068`	The consonant h

Feature set matchers

Every IPA character can be described using a set of phonetic features. Feature set matchers are denoted by enclosing a list of feature names inside braces. Features contained within a phonex feature set matcher can be required (default) or unwanted (prefixed by - (minus)). Feature names are case-insensitive and can be written using the full feature name or shorthand equivalent (e.g., {consonant} is the same as {c}.)

Table 2. Feature set matcher examples
Expression	Matches
`{consonant, coronal}`	All coronal consonants
`{c, -coronal}`	All non-coronal consonants
`{}`	Anything

Regex matchers

Since IPA transcriptions are composed of unicode strings, regular expressions can also be used to match phones. To use a regex matcher, place the desired regular expression inside single quote characters.

Table 3. Regex matcher examples
Expression	Matches
`'a'`	The vowel a. Unlike the un-quoted version, 'a' will not match cases that have attached diacritics.
`'[e-i]'`	Characters in the range 'e' to 'i'.

Phone class matchers

Phone class matchers combine several phone matchers into a 'class.' Phone classes are denoted by enclosing a set of phone matchers inside brackets. The phone class will match if any of the inner-matchers match. If the phone class starts with a - (minus) symbol, then the class will match any phone not matched by the inner-matchers.

Table 4. Phone class examples
Expression	Matches
`[{glide}\v]`	Any glide or vowel.
`[^{c,labial}\v]`	Anything not a labial consonant or a vowel.

Compound phone matchers

Compound phones are composed of two single-phones bi-sected by a ligature. To match compound phones in phonex, connect two phone matchers using a _ (underscore) character.

Table 5. Compound phone matcher examples
Expression	Matches
`t_{fricative}`	Any compound phone starting with the consonant 't' and ending with a fricative.
`._.`	Any compound phone.