The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for Disordered Speech, commonly abbreviated extIPA /ɛkˈstaɪpə/,^[1] are a set of letters and diacritics devised by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association to augment the International Phonetic Alphabet for the phonetic transcription of disordered speech. Some of the symbols are used for transcribing features of normal speech in IPA transcription, and are accepted as such by the International Phonetic Association.^[a]

Many sounds found only in disordered speech are indicated with diacritics, though an increasing number of dedicated letters are used as well. Special letters are included to transcribe the speech of people with lisps and cleft palates. The extIPA repeats several standard-IPA diacritics that are unfamiliar to most people but transcribe features that are common in disordered speech. These include preaspiration ⟨ʰ◌Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩, linguolabial ⟨◌̼Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩, laminal fricatives [s̻, z̻]Category:Pages with plain IPA, and ⟨*Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ for a sound (segment or feature) with no available symbol (letter or diacritic). The novel transcription ⟨ɹ̈Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ is used for an English molar-r, as opposed to ⟨ɹ̺Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ for an apical r; these articulations are indistinguishable in sound and so are rarely identified in non-disordered speech.

Sounds restricted to disordered speech include velopharyngeals, nasal fricatives (a.k.a. nareal fricatives) and some of the percussive consonants. Sounds sometimes found in the world's languages that do not have symbols in the basic IPA include denasals, the sublaminal percussive, palatal and velar lateral fricatives, and fricatives that are simultaneously lateral and sibilant.

ExtIPA was revised and expanded in 2015; the new symbols were added to Unicode in 2021.^[2]

Letters

The non-IPA letters found in the extIPA are listed in the following table. VoQS letters may also be used, as in ⟨ↀ͡r̪͆Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ for a buccal interdental trill (a raspberry), as VoQS started off as a subset of extIPA.^[3]

Several letters and superscript forms were added to Unicode 14 and 15. They are included in the free Gentium and Andika fonts.

Diacritics

The extIPA has explicitly endorsed some rarer uses of regular IPA diacritics, such as [ʰp]Category:Pages with plain IPA for pre-aspiration, and has added some new ones, such as [tʶ]Category:Pages with plain IPA for uvularization. Some of these extIPA diacritics are occasionally used for non-disordered speech, for example for the unusual airstream mechanisms of Damin.

One extension of regular IPA is the use of parentheses around diacritics to indicate partial application of that diacritic: a pair of parentheses around a diacritic indicates that the diacritic only partially applies (in degree or duration), while a single parenthesis at the left or right of the diacritic indicates that the segment is partially affected at its beginning or end. These conventions may be convenient for representing various voice onset times. Phonation diacritics may also be prefixed or suffixed to represent relative timing beyond the segment (pre- and post-voicing etc.). The following are examples; in principle, any IPA or extIPA diacritic may be parenthesized or displaced in this manner.^[3]

The transcriptions for partial voicing and devoicing may be used in either the sense of degrees of voicing or in the sense that the voicing is discontinuous. For the former, both parentheses indicate the sound is mildly (partially) voiced throughout, and single parentheses mean a partial degree of voicing at the beginning or end of the sound. For the latter, both parentheses mean the sound is (de)voiced in the middle, while the single parentheses mean complete (de)voicing at the beginning or end of the sound. The implication is that such voicing or devoicing is atypical of the language being spoken. For example, ⟨z̥Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ would be used for the usual devoicing or partial devoicing of the language, while ⟨z̥᪽Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ would indicate that the transcriber found the devoicing to be atypical, as in pathological speech. Similarly, ⟨z̥᫃Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ would indicate atypical devoicing at the beginning of the segment.^[4] However, some authors use the parentheses for typical devoicing in close transcription. For example, the Bardi word aamba 'man', with the usual initial and final devoicing of that language, has been transcribed [ɐ̥͡ɐmbə̥᫄]Category:Pages with plain IPA.^[5]

Altering the position of a diacritic relative to the letter indicates that the phonation begins before the consonant or vowel does or continues beyond it. The voiceless ring and other phonation diacritics can be used in the same way if needed. For example, ⟨p˳aCategory:Pages with plain IPA⟩ indicates that voicelessness continues past the [p]Category:Pages with plain IPA, more or less equivalent to ⟨pʰaCategory:Pages with plain IPA⟩.

Other extIPA diacritics are:^[3]

Diacritics may be placed within parentheses as the voicing diacritics are above. For example, ⟨m͊᪻Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ indicates a partially denasalized [m]Category:Pages with plain IPA.

The arrow for sliding articulation was first used for [wɑət̪s̪͢θ]Category:Pages with plain IPA for 'watch' and [z̪͢ðɪpʊə]Category:Pages with plain IPA for 'zipper'. It is most commonly observed in quick changes from the blade to the tip of the tongue (laminal to apical) in plosives and fricatives, such as [t̪͢t]Category:Pages with plain IPA and [t͢θ]Category:Pages with plain IPA, or vice versa, but is not limited to that; the consonants may also be labial or dorsal, e.g. [ɸ͢f]Category:Pages with plain IPA and [k͢q]Category:Pages with plain IPA.^[8]

The slit-grooved distinction of the channel shape of front fricatives may be handled with these diacritics, with for example ⟨s̪ z̪Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ for grooved (sibilant) dental fricatives, and ⟨θ͇ ð͇Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ for ungrooved (non-sibilant) alveolar fricatives. This is a common topic in speech pathology, though ⟨s̪ z̪Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ occur in non-pathological speech in some languages.^[8]

Any IPA letter may be used in superscript form as a diacritic, to indicate the onset, release or 'flavor' of another letter. In extIPA, this is provided specifically for the fricative release of a plosive. For example, ⟨k𐞜Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ is [k]Category:Pages with plain IPA with a lateral-fricative release (similar to the velar lateral affricate [k͜𝼄]Category:Pages with plain IPA, but with less frication); ⟨d𐞚Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ is [d]Category:Pages with plain IPA with lateral-plus-central release. Combining diacritics can be added to superscript diacritics, such as ⟨tʰ̪͆Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ for [t]Category:Pages with plain IPA with bidental aspiration.

The VoQS (voice-quality symbols) take IPA and extIPA diacritics, as well as several additional diacritics that are potentially available for extIPA transcription. The subscript dot for 'whisper' is sometimes found in IPA transcription,^[9] though in IPA the diacritic has also been used for apical-retroflex articulation.

Prosodic notation and indeterminate sounds

The Extended IPA has adopted bracket notation from conventions transcribing discourse. Parentheses are used to indicate mouthing (silent articulation), as in the common silent sign to hush (ʃːː)Category:Pages with plain IPA. Parentheses are also used to indicate silent pauses, for example (...); the length of the pause may be indicated, as in (2.3 sec). A very short (.) may be used to indicate an absence of co-articulation between adjacent segments, for instance [t(.)weɫv̥]Category:Pages with plain IPA rather than [tʷw̥eɫv̥]Category:Pages with plain IPA.^[10]

Double parentheses indicate that transcription is uncertain because of extraneous noise or speech, as when one person talks over another. As much detail as possible may be included, as in ⸨2 syll.⸩ or ⸨2σ⸩ for two obscured syllables.^[11] This is also IPA usage.^[12] Sometimes the obscuring noise will be indicated instead, as in ⸨cough⸩ or ⸨knock⸩, as in the illustrative transcription below; this notation may be used for extraneous noise that does not obscure speech, but which the transcriber nonetheless wishes to notate (e.g. because someone says 'excuse me' after coughing, or verbally responds to the knock on the door, and the noise is thus required to understand the speech).

In the extIPA, indistinguishable/unidentifiable sounds are circled rather than placed in single parentheses as in IPA.^[l] An empty circle, ◯, is used for an indeterminate segment, ◯ σ  an indeterminate syllable, Ⓒ a segment identifiable only as a consonant, etc. Full capital letters, such as C in Ⓒ, are used as wild-cards for certain categories of sounds, and may combine with IPA and extIPA diacritics. For example, ◯ P̥Category:Pages with plain IPA   indicates an undetermined or indeterminate voiceless plosive. Regular IPA and extIPA letters may also be circled to indicate that their identification is uncertain. For example, ⓚ indicates that the segment is judged to probably be [k]Category:Pages with plain IPA. This is effectively a copy-edit mark, and may be elongated into an oval for longer strings of symbols. This was illustrated in the 1997 edition of the chart, where the circle was typeset as ( ̲̅) and longer strings as e.g. (a̲̅a̲̅a̲̅). There is no way to typeset this in Unicode that does not require spurious characters between the letters (as here), but it may be graphically approximated with an unused set of brackets, such as ⦇aaa⦈ or ⸦aaa⸧.

Curly brackets with Italian musical terms are used for phonation and prosodic notation, such as [{_falsetto ˈhɛlp _falsetto}]Category:Pages with plain IPA and terms for the tempo and dynamics of connected speech. These are subscripted within a {curly brace} notation to indicate that they are comments on the intervening text. The VoQS conventions use similar notation for voice quality. These may be combined, for example with VoQS ⟨F⟩ for 'falsetto':

{_allegro I {F {_𝆏 didn't _𝆏} know that F} _allegro}

or

[{_allegro ə {F {_𝆏 dɪn _𝆏} nəʊ ðæʔ F} _allegro}]Category:Pages with plain IPA^[10]

Chart

Three rows appear in the extIPA chart that do not occur in the IPA chart: "fricative lateral + median" (simultaneous grooved and lateral frication), "fricative nasal" (a.k.a. nareal fricative) and "percussive". A denasal row is added here. Several new columns appear as well, though the linguolabial column is the result of a standard-IPA diacritic. Dorso-velar and velo-dorsal are combined here, as are upper and lower alveolar.

Superscript variants

The customary use of superscript IPA letters is formalized in the extIPA, specifically for fricative releases of plosives, as can be seen with ⟨k𐞜Category:Pages with plain IPA⟩ in the lower-left of the full chart.

Speech pathologists also often use superscripting to indicate that a target sound has not been reached – for example, [ˈtʃɪᵏən]Category:Pages with plain IPA for an instance of the word 'chicken' where the /k/Category:Pages with plain IPA is incompletely articulated. However, due to the vague meaning of superscripting in the IPA, this is not a convention supported by the ICPLA. An unambiguous transcription would mark the consonant more specifically as weakened ([ˈtʃɪk͉ən]Category:Pages with plain IPA) or silent ([ˈtʃɪ(k)ən]Category:Pages with plain IPA).

Sample text

A sample transcription of a written text read aloud, using extIPA and Voice Quality Symbols:^[13]

[ð\ðːə̤ {V̰ ə\ə\ə V̰} ˈhw̥əɹld ˈkʌp ˈf̆\faɪnəlz əv ˈnaɪntin eəti {↓_𝑝ˈtʉ̆ _𝑝↓} ˌɑɹ ˈh\hɛld ɪn sːp\ˈsːp\ʰeᵊn ˈðɪs jəɹ (3 sec) ð͈ːe wɪl ɪnv\ˈv͈ːɔlv ðə tˢˑ\tʴ̥ (.) {_𝑝 tʼ\tʼ _𝑝} ʩ \ {_𝑓 ʩ \ ʩ _𝑓}\ˈt͈ɒ̆p̚ ˈneʃənz əv ðə ˈwəɹld ɪnˑ ə̰ {_𝑝𝑝 tʰˑəʃ\t̆ʰə\təʃ _𝑝𝑝}\ˈt͈ʉɹnəmənt ˈlastɪn ˌoʊvər ˈfɔɹ ˈwiks (..) ˈh͈ɛld ə\ ʔat ˈf\fɔɹtin (...) {_𝑝𝑝 V̰ d\d V̰ _𝑝𝑝} \ ˈdɪfɹənt ˈsɛn{↓təɹʐ↓} ɪn ˈspeᵊn (3 sec) ə̰ (.) ˈɔl əv ðə fˑ\f ˈɔl əv ðə ˈfəɹʂt ˈɹaʉnd ˈɡeᵊmz wɪl bi (..) wɪl bi (.) ɪn ðə (.) w̰̆ə̰ː p\pɹəv\ˈvɪnʃəl {_𝑝 tʼ\tʼ _𝑝} \ {_𝑝𝑝 tʼ\tʼ _𝑝𝑝} (.) tʼ\tʼ (..) {_𝑝𝑝 tʼ\tʼ _𝑝𝑝} ʩ \ ʩ \ {↓ˈtãʉ̃nz↓} wɪð ðə s͢ːsʼ\sʼ\ˈs{↓ɛmi ˈfaɪnəlz↓} and ˈf\faɪnəlz ˈhɛld ɪn (.) ⸨knock on door⸩ bɑɹsə{_𝑝ˈloʊnə and ˈmədɹɪd _𝑝}]Category:Pages with plain IPA

Original text: "The World Cup Finals of 1982 are held in Spain this year. They will involve the top nations of the World in a tournament lasting over four weeks, held at fourteen different centers in Spain. All of the first-round games will be in the provincial towns with the semi-finals, and finals held in Barcelona and Madrid."^[13]

Notes

See also

• Voice Quality Symbols
• Sinological phonetic notation
• Phonetic symbols in Unicode

References

Bibliography

• Ball, Martin J. (1993). "Further to Articulatory Force and the IPA Revisions". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 23 (1): 39–41. doi:10.1017/S0025100300004783. S2CID 143614464.
• Ball, Martin J.; Esling, John H.; Dickson, Craig (December 1995). "The VoQS System for the Transcription of Voice Quality". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 25 (2): 71–80. doi:10.1017/S0025100300005181. S2CID 145791575.
• Ball, Martin J.; Howard, Sara J.; Miller, Kirk (2018). "Revisions to the extIPA chart". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 48 (2): 155–164. doi:10.1017/S0025100317000147. S2CID 151863976.
• Ball, Martin J.; Lowry, Orla M. (2001). "Transcribing Disordered Speech". Methods in Clinical Phonetics. London: Whurr. pp. 25–40, 80. doi:10.1002/9780470777879.ch3. ISBN 9781861561848. S2CID 58518097.
• Bennett, William G. (2020). "Click Phonology". In Sands, Bonny (ed.). Click Consonants. Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory. Vol. 15. Brill. pp. 74–128. doi:10.1163/9789004424357_003. ISBN 978-90-04-23268-6. S2CID 243697259.
• Duckworth, Martin; Allen, George; Hardcastle, William; Ball, Martin J. (1990). "Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for the transcription of atypical speech". Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics. 4 (4). International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association: 273–280. doi:10.3109/02699209008985489.
• Hesselwood, Barry; Howard, Sara (2008). "Clinical Phonetic Transcription". In Ball, Martin J.; Perkins, Michael R.; Müller, Nicole; Howard, Sara (eds.). The handbook of Clinical Linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781444301007.ch23. ISBN 9781405135221.
• International Phonetic Association (1999). Handbook of the International Phonetic Association : a guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521637510.
• Ladefoged, Peter (1971). Preliminaries to linguistic phonetics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-46787-2. LCCN 75-179318.
• Laver, John (1994). Principles of phonetics. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139166621. ISBN 9781139166621.
• van der Voort, Hein (2005). "Kwaza in a Comparative Perspective". International Journal of American Linguistics. 71 (4). University of Chicago Press: 365–412. doi:10.1086/501245. S2CID 224808983.

External links

• Chart of extended IPA symbols for disordered speech (PDF, revised to 2015), IPA
• Extensions to the IPA (ExtIPA) chart (revised to 2021), ICLPA
• Pronunciation videos of consonants in the main extIPA chart as of 2008