Angle brackets

Notation
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Symbols (< >) used in editorial or linguistic notation, rarely in poetic text but sometimes for annotation.

Detailed Definition
Angle brackets are primarily used in scholarly editions or linguistic transcriptions to enclose editorial insertions, hypothetical reconstructions, or phonetic notations; in poetry, they may frame meta-commentary, indicate omitted text, or signal performative cues in avant-garde works, though they rarely appear in canonical verse.
Example
Example in poetry:
Angle brackets < > are rarely used in traditional poetry but appear in digital or code poetry, e.g., “<love> not found”; In experimental typography, poets use < > to frame meta-commentary like “<this line is a lie>”; Some poets employ angle brackets to denote omitted or redacted text: “She said <classified> and walked away”; In generative poetry, <variable> might stand in for algorithmically inserted words; Contemporary poets use < > to simulate HTML tags as poetic devices, such as “<div class=‘grief’>”; In conceptual poetry, < > can enclose performative instructions like “<pause for three breaths>”.
Additional Notes
Angle brackets: Angle brackets (⟨ ⟩) in poetic notation often enclose editorial insertions, conjectural readings, or phonetic transcriptions in scholarly editions; they may also denote semantic or syntactic framing in linguistic analyses of verse—use them to distinguish hypothesized or non-original text without disrupting the poem’s visual integrity.
Also Known As
chevrons pointy brackets
Skip to main content