Editing International Phonetic Alphabet (section)

=== Brackets and transcription delimiters<span class="anchor" id="Delimiters"></span> ===
There are two principal types of [[bracket]]s used to set off (delimit) IPA transcriptions:
{| class="wikitable"
! | Symbol !! Use
|-
| style="text-align:center" | {{IPA|[&nbsp;...&nbsp;]}} || [[Square brackets]] are used with [[phonetic]] notation, whether broad or narrow<ref name="IPA175">{{harvnb|International Phonetic Association|1999|p=175}}</ref> – that is, for actual pronunciation, possibly including details of the pronunciation that may not be used for distinguishing words in the language being transcribed, but which the author nonetheless wishes to document. Such phonetic notation is the primary function of the IPA.
|-
| style="text-align: center" | {{IPA|/&nbsp;...&nbsp;/}} || [[Slash (punctuation)|Slashes]]{{NoteTag|For example, [[Merriam-Webster]] dictionaries use [[backslash]]es {{IPA|\&nbsp;...&nbsp;\}} to demarcate their in-house diaphonemic transcription system. This contrasts with the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', which transcribes a specific target accent.<!--the IPA influence in the MW system is rather minimal, being limited to the IPA stress marks and schwa, but the pronunciation data collected for MW's Third New International was in IPA and the IPA was seriously considered for its transcription system in publication.-->|name=MW}} are used for abstract [[phonemic]] notation,<ref name=IPA175 /> which note only features that are distinctive in the language, without any extraneous detail. For example, while the 'p' sounds of English ''pin'' and ''spin'' are pronounced differently (and this difference would be meaningful in some languages), the difference is not meaningful in English. Thus, ''phonemically'' the words are usually<!--could also be analyzed /pin/ and /sbin/--> analyzed as {{IPA|/ˈpɪn/}} and {{IPA|/ˈspɪn/}}, with the same phoneme {{IPA|/p/}}. To capture the difference between them{{snd}}the [[allophone]]s of {{IPA|/p/}}{{snd}}they can be transcribed phonetically as {{IPA|[pʰɪn]}} and {{IPA|[spɪn]}}. Phonemic notation commonly uses IPA symbols that are rather close to the default pronunciation of a phoneme, but for legibility often uses simple and 'familiar' letters rather than precise notation, for example {{IPA|/r/}} and {{IPA|/o/}} for the English {{IPA|[ɹʷ]}} and {{IPA|[əʊ̯]}} sounds, or {{IPA|/c, ɟ/}} for {{IPA|[t͜ʃ, d͜ʒ]}} as mentioned above.
|}

Less common conventions include:
{| class="wikitable"
! | Symbol !! Use
|-
| style="text-align:center" | {{IPA|&#x007B;&nbsp;...&nbsp;&#x007D;}} || [[Bracket#Curly brackets|Braces]] ("curly brackets") are used for [[prosodic]] notation.<ref name="IPA176">{{harvnb|International Phonetic Association|1999|p=176}}</ref> See [[Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet]] for examples in this system.
|-
| style="text-align:center" | {{IPA|(&nbsp;...&nbsp;)}} || [[Parentheses]] are used for indistinguishable<ref name=IPA175 /> or unidentified utterances. They are also seen for silent articulation (mouthing),<ref name="IPA191">{{harvnb|International Phonetic Association|1999|p=191}}</ref> where the expected phonetic transcription is derived from lip-reading, and with periods to indicate silent pauses, for example {{IPA|(…)}} or {{IPA|(2 sec)}}. The latter usage is made official in the [[extIPA]], with unidentified segments circled instead.<ref>{{harvnb|International Phonetic Association|1999|pp=188, 192}}</ref>
|-
| style="text-align: center; | {{IPA|⸨&nbsp;...&nbsp;⸩}} || [[Parenthesis|Double parentheses]] indicate either a transcription of obscured speech or a description of the obscuring noise. The IPA specifies that they mark the obscured sound,<ref name=IPA176 /> as in {{IPA|⸨2σ⸩}}, two audible syllables obscured by another sound. The current extIPA specifications prescribe double parentheses for the extraneous noise, such as ⸨cough⸩ for a cough by another person (not the speaker) or ⸨knock⸩ for a knock on a door, but the IPA ''Handbook'' identifies IPA and extIPA usage as equivalent.<ref>{{harvnb|International Phonetic Association|1999|pp=176, 192}}</ref> Early publications of the extIPA explain double parentheses as marking "uncertainty because of noise which obscures the recording", and that within them "may be indicated as much detail as the transcriber can detect."<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Duckworth |first1=Martin |last2=Allen |first2=George |last3=Hardcastle |first3=William |last4=Ball |first4=Martin |date=1990 |title=Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for the transcription of atypical speech |journal=Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics |volume=4 |issue=4 |page=278 |doi=10.3109/02699209008985489 |issn=0269-9206}}</ref>
|}

All three of the above are provided by the IPA ''Handbook''. The following are not, but may be seen in IPA transcription or in associated material (especially angle brackets):
{| class="wikitable"
! scope="col" | Symbol !! scope="col" | Field !! scope="col" | Description
|-
| style="text-align:center" | {{IPA|⟦&nbsp;...&nbsp;⟧}} || Phonetics
| [[Square bracket|Double square brackets]] are used for especially precise phonetic transcription, often finer than is normally practicable.<ref>Charles-James Bailey (1985: 3) ''English phonetic transcription''. SIL.</ref> This is consistent with the IPA convention of doubling a symbol to indicate greater degree. Double brackets may indicate that a letter has its cardinal IPA value. For example, {{IPA|⟦a⟧}} is an open front vowel, rather than the perhaps slightly different value (such as open central) that "{{IPA|[a]}}" may be used to transcribe in a particular language. Thus, two vowels transcribed for easy legibility as {{IPA|[e]}} and {{IPA|[ɛ]}} may be clarified as actually being {{IPA|⟦e̝⟧}} and {{IPA|⟦e⟧}}; {{IPA|[ð]}} may be more precisely {{IPA|⟦ð̠̞ˠ⟧}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Basbøll |first=Hans |title=The Phonology of Danish |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-19-824268-0 |series=The Phonology of the World's Languages |location=New York |pages=45, 59}}</ref> Double brackets may also be used for a specific token or speaker; for example, the pronunciation of a particular child as opposed to the adult pronunciation that is their target.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Karlsson |title=/sP/ consonant clusters in Swedish: Acoustic measurements of phonological development |year=2005 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/208033488 |last2=Sullivan}}</ref>
|-
| style="text-align:center" | {{ubc|{{IPA|⫽&nbsp;...&nbsp;⫽}}|{{IPA|&#x007B;&nbsp;...&nbsp;&#x007D;}}|{{IPA|&#x007C;&nbsp;...&nbsp;&#x007C;}}|{{IPA|‖&nbsp;...&nbsp;‖}}}} || [[Morphophonology]]
| [[Slash (punctuation)|Double slashes]] are used for [[morphophonemic]] transcription. This is also consistent with the IPA convention of doubling a symbol to indicate greater degree – in this case, more abstract than phonemic transcription.

Also commonly seen are the braces of [[set theory]], especially when enclosing the set of phonemes that constitute the morphophoneme, e.g. {{IPA|&#x007B;t&nbsp;d&#x007D;}} or {{IPA|&#x007B;t&#x007C;d&#x007D;}} or {{IPA|&#x007B;/t/,&nbsp;/d/&#x007D;}} for a conflated {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/d/}}. Braces have a conflicting use to delimit prosodic transcription within the [[Voice Quality Symbols]], which are an extension of IPA used in extIPA, but are not otherwise used in IPA proper.

Other delimiters sometimes seen are [[vertical bar|pipes]] and double pipes taken from [[Americanist phonetic notation]]. However, these conflict with the pipes used in basic IPA prosodic transcription.{{NoteTag|For example, single and double pipe symbols are used for minor and major prosodic breaks. Although the ''Handbook'' specifies the prosodic symbols as being "thick" vertical lines, which would in theory be distinct from simple ASCII pipes used as delimiters (and similar to [[Dania transcription|Dania]] transcription), this was an idea to keep them distinct from the otherwise similar pipes used as [[click letter]]s, and is almost never found in practice.{{sfn|Roach|1989|p=75}} The ''Handbook'' assigns the prosodic pipe the Unicode encodings U+007C, which is the simple ASCII symbol, and the double pipe U+2016.<ref name="auto">{{harvnb|International Phonetic Association|1999|p=174}}</ref>}}
|-
| style="text-align:center" | {{ubc|{{IPA|\&nbsp;...&nbsp;\}}|{{IPA|⫽&nbsp;...&nbsp;⫽}}|{{IPA|&#x007C;&nbsp;...&nbsp;&#x007C;}}|{{IPA|!&nbsp;...&nbsp;!}}}} || [[Diaphonology]]
| [[Backslash]]es are used for [[diaphonemic]] transcription, for example setting off pronunciations in dictionaries that do not target a specific preferred dialect.{{NoteTag|name=MW}}

Other delimiters are double slashes, – the same notation as for morphophonology, – exclamation marks, and pipes.
|-
| style="text-align:center" | {{ubc|{{angbr IPA|&nbsp;...&nbsp;}}|{{IPA|⟪&nbsp;...&nbsp;⟫}}|{{IPA|&#x007C;&nbsp;...&nbsp;&#x007C;}}}} || [[Graphemics]]
| [[Angle bracket]]s{{NoteTag|The proper angle brackets in Unicode are the mathematical symbols (U+27E8 and U+27E9). Chevrons ‹...› (U+2039, U+203A) are sometimes substituted, as in Americanist phonetic notation, as are the less-than and greater-than signs <...> (U+003C, U+003E) found on ASCII keyboards.}} are used to mark both original Latin orthography and [[transliteration]] from another script;<!--including e.g. Arabic and Chinese characters used to transcribe Latin script--> they are also used to identify individual [[grapheme]]s of any script.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sproat |first=Richard William |title=A Computational Theory of Writing Systems |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-521-66340-3 |series=Studies in Natural Language Processing |pages=26}}</ref>{{sfn|Heselwood|2013|pp=8 ff, 29 ff}} In IPA literature, they are used to indicate the IPA letters themselves rather than the sound values that they carry.
For example, {{angbr IPA|cot}} would be used for the orthography of the English word ''cot'', as opposed to its pronunciation {{IPA|/ˈkɒt/}}. Italics are usual when words are written as themselves (as with ''cot'' in the previous sentence) rather than to specifically note their orthography. However, italics are sometimes ambiguous, and italic markup is not always accessible to sight-impaired readers who rely on [[screen reader]] technology.

Double angle brackets may occasionally be useful to distinguish original orthography from transliteration, or the idiosyncratic spelling of a manuscript from the normalized orthography of the language.

Pipes are sometimes used instead of double angle brackets to denote the distinct [[allograph]]s of a grapheme that are known as ''[[glyphs]]''. For example, print {{IPA|{{gph|g}}}} and script {{IPA|{{gph|ɡ}}}} are two glyph variants of the grapheme {{angbr|[[g]]}} of Latin script.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Meletis |first1=Dimitrios |title=Writing Systems and Their Use: An Overview of Grapholinguistics |last2=Dürscheid |first2=Christa |publisher=De Gruyter Mouton |year=2022 |isbn=978-3-11-075777-4 |page=64}}</ref>
|}

Some examples of contrasting brackets in the literature:
{{blockquote|In some English accents, the phoneme {{IPA|/l/}}, which is usually spelled as {{angbr|l}} or {{angbr|ll}}, is articulated as two distinct allophones: the clear {{IPA|[l]}} occurs before vowels and the consonant {{IPA|/j/}}, whereas the dark {{IPA|[ɫ]}}/{{IPA|[lˠ]}} occurs before consonants, except {{IPA|/j/}}, and at the end of words.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tench |first=Paul |title=Transcribing the Sound of English: A Phonetics Workbook for Words and Discourse |date=2011-08-11 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-00019-3 |pages=61 |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511698361}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|the alternations {{IPA|/f/}}{{snd}}{{IPA|/v/}} in plural formation in one class of nouns, as in ''knife'' {{IPA|/naɪf/}}{{snd}}''knives'' {{IPA|/naɪvz/}}, which can be represented morphophonemically as {{IPA|{naɪV}}}{{snd}}{{IPA|{naɪV+z}}}. The morphophoneme {{IPA|{V}}} stands for the phoneme set {{IPA|{/f/, /v/}}}.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Gibbon |first1=Dafydd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8cxtWcsAk5MC&pg=PA61 |title=Handbook of Standards and Resources for Spoken Language Systems: Spoken language characterisation |last2=Moore |first2=Roger |last3=Winski |first3=Richard |date=1998 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-015734-5 |pages=61}}</ref>}}

{{blockquote|{{IPA|[ˈf\faɪnəlz ˈhɛld ɪn (.) ⸨knock on door⸩ bɑɹsə{<sub>𝑝</sub>ˈloʊnə and ˈmədɹɪd<sub> 𝑝</sub>}]}} — ''f-finals held in Barcelona and Madrid.''<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Ball |first1=Martin J. |author-link1=Martin J. Ball |title=Methods in Clinical Phonetics |last2=Lowry |first2=Orla M. |date=2001 |publisher=Whurr |isbn=978-1-86156-184-8 |location=London |pages=80 |chapter=Transcribing Disordered Speech |doi=10.1002/9780470777879.ch3 |s2cid=58518097}}</ref>}}