Editing International Phonetic Alphabet (section)

=== Capital letters ===
Full capital letters are not used as IPA symbols, except as typewriter substitutes (e.g. N for {{angbr IPA|ŋ}}, S for {{angbr IPA|&thinsp;ʃ&thinsp;}}, O for {{angbr IPA|ɔ}} – see [[SAMPA]]). They are, however, often used in conjunction with the IPA in two cases:
# for [[archiphoneme|(archi)phonemes]] and for [[natural class]]es of sounds (that is, as wildcards). The [[extIPA]] chart, for example, uses capital letters as wildcards in its illustrations.
# as carrying letters for the [[Voice Quality Symbols]].

Wildcards are commonly used in phonology to summarize syllable or word shapes, or to show the evolution of classes of sounds. For example, the possible syllable shapes of Mandarin can be abstracted as ranging from {{IPA|/V/}} (an atonic vowel) to {{IPA|/CGVNᵀ/}} (a consonant-glide-vowel-nasal syllable with tone), and [[word-final devoicing]] may be schematized as {{IPA|C}} → {{IPA|C̥}}/_#. They are also used in [[historical linguistics]] for a sound that is posited but whose nature has not been determined beyond some generic category such as {nasal} or {uvular}.<!--e.g. a posited 5th click series in Fehn & Rocha (2023) Lost in translation, ''Diachronica'' 40:5.--> In speech pathology, capital letters represent indeterminate sounds, and may be superscripted to indicate they are weakly articulated: e.g. {{IPA|[ᴰ]}} is a weak indeterminate alveolar, {{IPA|[ᴷ]}} a weak indeterminate velar.<ref>{{Cite thesis |title=Phonological/phonetic assessment of an English speaking adult with dysarthria |url=https://research.library.mun.ca/9299/ |publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland |date=2000 |degree=masters |language=en |first=Jill Rosamund |last=Perry |access-date=24 June 2023 |archive-date=24 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324021211/https://research.library.mun.ca/9299/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

There is a degree of variation between authors as to the capital letters used, but these are ubiquitous in English-language material:
* {{angbr IPA|C}} for {consonant}
* {{angbr IPA|V}} for {vowel}
* {{angbr IPA|N}} for {nasal}
Other common conventions are:
* {{angbr IPA|T}} for {tone/accent} (tonicity)<!--e.g. Nathan White, 'Word in Hmong', in Phonological Word and Grammatical Word.-->
* {{angbr IPA|P}} for {plosive}<!--e.g. Karlsson & Sullivan (2005) /sP/ consonant clusters in Swedish, Vanderweide (2005) The acquisition of manner in pre-vocalic sequences, also Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics (HCHIEL).-->
* {{angbr IPA|F}} for {fricative}<!--e.g. 2015 extIPA chart, or Pellegrino et al. "2010, a speech oddity: Phonetic transcription of reversed speech", Vanderweide (2005), also HCHIEL. -->
* {{angbr IPA|S}} for {sibilant}<!--e.g. Waterson (1987) Prosodic Phonology; Dolgopolsky, Indo-European Dict Nostratic Etymologies, also HCHIEL.-->{{NoteTag|As in [[Afrasianist phonetic notation]]. {{angbr IPA|S}} is particularly ambiguous. It has been used for 'stop', 'fricative', 'sibilant', 'sonorant' and 'semivowel'. On the other hand, plosive/stop is frequently abbreviated {{angbr IPA|P}}, {{angbr IPA|S}} or (with non-tonal languages) * {{angbr IPA|T}}. The illustrations given here use, as much as possible, letters that are capital versions of members of the sets they stand for: IPA {{IPA|[n]}} is a nasal and {{angbr IPA|N}} is any nasal; {{IPA|[p]}} is a plosive, {{IPA|[f]}} a fricative, {{IPA|[s]}} a sibilant, {{IPA|[l]}} both a lateral and a liquid, {{IPA|[r]}} both a rhotic and a resonant, and [ʞ] a click. {{angbr IPA|¢}} is an obstruent in Americanist notation, where it stands for {{IPA|[ts]}}. An alternative wildcard for 'glide', {{angbr IPA|J}}<!--e.g. International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics XXIII-->, fits this pattern, but is much less common than {{angbr IPA|G}} in English-language sources.}}
* {{angbr IPA|G}} for {glide/semivowel}<!--e.g. Vanderweide (2005), HCHIEL.-->
* {{angbr IPA|L}} for {lateral}<!--e.g. Smith 2000 Dependency Theory Meets OT, or in Australian languages that have a large set of laterals.--> or {liquid}<!--e.g. Walker 1984 Pronunciation of Canadian French, or Pellegrino et al., or Vanderweide (2005), HCHIEL.-->
* {{angbr IPA|R}} for {rhotic}<!--e.g. Smith 2000 Dependency Theory Meets OT, or Pellegrino et al.--> or {resonant/sonorant<!--e.g. "R" for "sonorant" in Larry Hyman 'Coda constraints on tone', also HCHIEL; "R" for "sonorant" (nasals, semivowels and glottals) in Hank Nater (2006) Athabaskan verb stem structure: Tahltan.-->}{{NoteTag|In the context of {{angbr|CRV-}} syllables, the {{angbr|R}} is understood to include liquids and glides but to exclude nasals, as in Bennett (2020: 115) 'Click Phonology', in Sands (ed.), ''Click Consonants'', Brill}}<!--Do a GBooks search for 'CLV' or 'CRV' + 'liquid'/'resonant' + 'phonology' for instances of L and R.-->
* {{angbr IPA|₵}} for {obstruent}<!--e.g. International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics XXIII.-->
* {{angbr IPA|Ʞ}} for {click}<!--See Bonny Sands 2020 'Introduction', ''Click Consonants'', Brill; also Fehn & Rocha (2023) Lost in translation, ''Diachronica'' 40:5.-->
* {{angbr IPA|A<!--e.g. Dolgopolsky-->, E<!--e.g. Dolgopolsky-->, I, O, U<!--e.g. Dolgopolsky-->}} for {open, front, close, back, rounded vowel}{{NoteTag|{Close vowel} may instead be {{angbr IPA|U}}, and {{angbr IPA|O}} may stand for {obstruent}.}} and {{angbr IPA|B, D, Ɉ, K, Q, Φ, H}} for {labial<!--HCHIEL-->, alveolar<!--Perry (2000)-->, post-alveolar/palatal, velar<!--HCHIEL, Perry (2000), or more generically as 'dorsal' in van de Vijver, Höhle & Ott, On the distribution of dorsals in complex and simple onsets in child German, Dutch and English.-->, uvular, pharyngeal, glottal{{NoteTag|Or glottal~pharyngeal {{angbr IPA|H}}, as in Afrasianist phonetic notation.}} consonant}, respectively
* {{angbr IPA|X}} for {any sound},<!--e.g. Walker 1984 Pronunciation of Canadian French.--> as in {{angbr IPA|CVX}} for a heavy syllable {{{IPA|CVC}}, {{IPA|CVV̯}}, {{IPA|CVː}}}<!--e.g. San Duanmu (2014) Syllable Structure and Stress, p. 423 ff.-->
The letters can be modified with IPA diacritics, for example:
* {{angbr IPA|Cʼ}} for {ejective}
* {{angbr IPA|Ƈ&thinsp;}} for {implosive}
* {{angbr IPA|N͡C}} or {{angbr IPA|ᴺC}} for {prenasalized consonant}
* {{angbr IPA|Ṽ}} for {[[nasal vowel]]}<!--e.g. Pellegrino et al.-->
* {{angbr IPA|CʰV́}} for {aspirated CV syllable with high tone}
* {{angbr IPA|S̬}} for {voiced sibilant}
* {{angbr IPA|N̥}} for {voiceless nasal}<!--e.g. Huffman & Hinnebusch, 'The phonetic nature of "voiceless" nasals in Pokomo'.-->
* {{angbr IPA|P͡F}} or {{angbr IPA|Pꟳ}} for {affricate}
* {{angbr IPA|Cᴳ}} for a consonant with a glide as secondary articulation<!--e.g. San Duanmu (2014) Syllable Structure and Stress, p. 424.--> (e.g. {{angbr IPA|Cʲ}} for {palatalized consonant}<!--e.g. Alexei Kochetov, Phonetic variation and gestural specification: Production of Russian consonants.--> or {{angbr IPA|Cʷ}} for {labialized consonant})
* {{angbr IPA|D̪}} for {dental consonant}
{{angbr IPA|H}}, {{angbr IPA|M}}, {{angbr IPA|L}} are also commonly used for high, mid and low tone, with {{angbr IPA|LH}} for rising tone and {{angbr IPA|HL}} for falling tone, rather than transcribing them overly precisely with IPA tone letters or with ambiguous digits.{{NoteTag|Somewhat more precisely, {{angbr IPA|LM}} and {{angbr IPA|MH}} are sometimes used for low and high rising tones, and {{angbr IPA|HM}}, {{angbr IPA|ML}} for high and low falling tones; occasionally {{angbr IPA|R}} for 'rising' or {{angbr IPA|F}} for 'falling' is seen.}}

Typical examples of archiphonemic use of capital letters are:
* {{angbr IPA|I}} for the Turkish harmonic vowel set {{IPA|{{brace|i y ɯ u}}}}{{NoteTag|For other Turkic languages, {{angbr IPA|I}} may be restricted to {{IPA|{{brace|ɯ i}}}} (that is, to ''ı i''), {{angbr IPA|U}} to ''u ü'', {{angbr IPA|A}} to ''a e'' (or ''a ä''), etc.}}
* {{angbr IPA|D}} for the conflated flapped middle consonant of American English ''writer'' and ''rider''
* {{angbr IPA|N}} for the [[homorganic]] syllable-coda nasal of languages such as Spanish and Japanese (essentially equivalent to the wild-card usage of the letter)
* {{angbr IPA|R}} in cases where a phonemic distinction between trill {{IPA|/r/}} and flap {{IPA|/ɾ/}} is conflated, as in Spanish {{lang|es|enrejar}} {{IPA|/eNreˈxaR/}} (the ''n'' is homorganic and the first ''r'' is a trill, but the second ''r'' is variable).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Quilis |first=Antonio |title=Principios de fonología y fonética españolas |publisher=Arco Libros |year=2012 |isbn=978-84-7635-250-2 |edition=1st |series=Cuadernos de lengua española |location=Madrid |pages=65 |language=Spanish}}</ref>
Similar usage is found for ''phonemic'' analysis, where a language does not distinguish sounds that have separate letters in the IPA. For instance, [[Castillian Spanish]] has been analyzed as having phonemes {{IPA|/Θ/}} and {{IPA|/S/}}, which surface as {{IPA|[θ]}} and {{IPA|[s]}} in voiceless environments and as {{IPA|[ð]}} and {{IPA|[z]}} in voiced environments (e.g. {{lang|es|hazte}} {{IPA|/ˈaΘte/}} → {{IPA|[ˈaθte]}}, vs {{lang|es|hazme}} {{IPA|/ˈaΘme/}} → {{IPA|[ˈaðme]}}, or {{lang|es|las manos}} {{IPA|/laS ˈmanoS/}} → {{IPA|[lazˈmanos]}}).<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Xavier |last=Frías Conde |year=2001 |title=Introducción a la fonología y fonética del español |pages=11–12 |journal=Ianua. Revista Philologica Romanica |language=Spanish |url=https://www.academia.edu/1768918 |access-date=24 June 2023 |archive-date=24 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230624085650/https://www.academia.edu/1768918 |url-status=live}}</ref>

{{angbr IPA|V}}, {{angbr IPA|F}} and {{angbr IPA|C}} have completely different meanings as [[Voice Quality Symbols]], where they stand for "voice" (VoQS jargon for [[secondary articulation]]),{{NoteTag|VoQS {{angbr IPA|V}} does not mean phonetic voicing, nor a vowel; for example, in VoQS {{angbr IPA|Ṽ}} is "nasal voice" (that is, [[nasalization]]), not a nasal vowel as it would be read in IPA notation.}} "falsetto" and "creak". These three letters may take diacritics to indicate what kind of voice quality an utterance has, and may be used as carrier letters to extract a suprasegmental feature that occurs on all susceptible segments in a stretch of IPA. For instance, the transcription of [[Scottish Gaelic]] {{IPA|[kʷʰuˣʷt̪ʷs̟ʷ]}} {{gloss|cat}} and {{IPA|[kʷʰʉˣʷt͜ʃʷ]}} {{gloss|cats}} ([[Islay]] dialect) can be made more economical by extracting the suprasegmental labialization of the words: {{IPA|Vʷ[kʰuˣt̪s̟]}} and {{IPA|Vʷ[kʰʉˣt͜ʃ]}}.<ref>{{harvnb|Laver|1994|p=374}}</ref> The conventional wildcards {{angbr IPA|X}} or {{angbr IPA|C}} might be used instead of VoQS {{angbr IPA|V}} so that the reader does not misinterpret {{angbr IPA|Vʷ}} as meaning that only vowels are labialized (i.e. {{IPA|Xʷ[kʰuˣt̪s̟]}} for all segments labialized, {{IPA|Cʷ[kʰuˣt̪s̟]}} for all consonants labialized), or the carrier letter may be omitted altogether (e.g. {{IPA|ʷ[kʰuˣt̪s̟]}}, {{IPA|[ʷkʰuˣt̪s̟]}} or {{IPA|[kʰuˣt̪s̟]ʷ}}). (See {{section link|#Suprasegmentals}} for other transcription conventions.)

This summary is to some extent valid internationally, but linguistic material written in other languages may have different associations with capital letters used as wildcards. For example, in German {{angbr IPA|K}} and {{angbr IPA|V}} are used for {{lang|de|Konsonant}} {{gloss|consonant}} and {{lang|de|Vokal}} {{gloss|vowel}}; in Russian, {{angbr IPA|С}} and {{angbr IPA|Г}} are used for {{lang|ru|согласный}} ({{translit|ru|soglasnyj}}, {{gloss|consonant}}) and {{lang|ru|гласный}} ({{translit|ru|glasnyj}}, {{gloss|vowel}}). In French, tone may be transcribed with {{angbr IPA|H}} and {{angbr IPA|B}} for {{lang|fr|haut}} {{gloss|high}} and {{lang|fr|bas}} {{gloss|low}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Paulian |first=Christiane |title=Le Kukuya: langue teke du Congo; phonologie, classes nominales |publisher=Peeters Publishers |year=1975 |isbn=978-2-85297-008-3 |series=Bibliothèque de la SELAF |language=French}}</ref>