General

UR: Underlying representation

SR: Surface representation

C: consonant

V: vowel

+V: plus voicing (plus value of a voice feature)

−V: voiceless (minus value of a voice feature)

Phonetic Symbol Guide

Authors vary in the symbols they use for phonetic transcription, although most aspire at least in part to some form of the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), shown below. (Ladefoged 2001, for example. See also Pullum and Ladusaw 1996 and Cipollone, Keiser and Vasishth, (eds.) 1998, The Language Files.)

British and American scholars may vary in their notations, as do authors working across languages, e.g., in India. In this book, we have attempted to maintain each author's transcription system for the sounds they are representing. This has resulted necessarily in variation across notations.

Some common variations:

For Neil Smith, a dot above or beneath a consonant, e.g., [g] or [b] indicates a voiceless, lenis articulation. (See Smith 1973, viii for this and other conventions.)

For Indic scholars, a capital letter or a letter with a tail or a dot beneath it may indicate retroflex.