Phonology Assistant

Phonology Assistant: Your Go-To Phonetic Data Analysis Software

Phonology Assistant is a cutting-edge discovery tool designed to streamline the analysis of phonetic data. By providing a robust platform that automatically charts sounds from a corpus of phonetic data, Phonology Assistant helps users uncover and test sound rules within a language. Whether you are working with lexical items, tone melodies, or phrasal utterances, this software simplifies the intricate processes of phonetic analysis.

This tool excels in harnessing source data from multiple applications such as FieldWorks Language Explorer, Toolbox, and Speech Analyzer. Users can include or exclude data from various dialects, ensuring comprehensive and versatile analysis. With Phonology Assistant, you can seamlessly jump to the source record in any SIL program, making it easy to view and edit data while keeping your charts and word lists up-to-date automatically.

Tone Analysis

Phonology Assistant expertly sorts lexical items by tone melody and can analyze tone across phrasal utterances, making it a powerful tool for linguists focused on tonal languages.

Tone Analysis

Seamless Source Data Integration

Utilize data transcribed with the Unicode IPA character set from Speech Analyzer, Toolbox, and FieldWorks. Phonology Assistant’s flexibility allows you to integrate multiple data sources effortlessly.

Distribution Charts

Visualize phonetic data with Distribution Charts that track Onset, Coda, and Rhyme occurrences. Save chart definitions for easy re-use, enhancing your efficiency and precision in phonetic analysis.

Distribution Charts

Common Questions

Does using a Community-based Participatory linguistics approach mean that PA is not needed?
The participatory approach gets immediately at conscious native speaker distinctive categories and the phonetics thereof. You might then conclude that PA is superfluous, but even in this case, PA is a great support for the preparation of a phonological sketch/statement.

Does PA work on Linux or a Mac?
You can run Phonology Assistant using Virtual Machine software: Parallels, VMWare Fusion, or VirtualBox are options.

How does PA compare to using Dekereke?
Both programs can do largely the same things but do it in different ways. Dekereke has the data loaded into the program whereas PA gets its data from FieldWorks, Speech Analyzer, or ToolBox.

See full FAQ list

Language Technology

Tools for charting phonetics and phonology