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Diphone

Sound
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

A phonetic unit comprising two adjacent sounds that function together as a single auditory impression, often used in sound poetry or alliteration.

Detailed Definition
A Diphone in poetry refers to a minimal sound unit comprising two adjacent phonemes whose combination carries distinctive meaning or sonic texture; poets attuned to diphones manipulate consonant-vowel pairings (e.g., “bl,” “st”) to create alliterative chains, assonance, or onomatopoeic effects that shape a poem’s acoustic landscape.
Example
Example in poetry:
Diphone: In phonetics, “str” in “street” is a diphone unit; in poetry, alliteration like “sly slithering snakes” emphasizes diphones for sonic texture.
Additional Notes
In phonetics, two-phoneme sequence or syllable. In poetry, emphasis on minimal sound units. Related to phonemic analysis and sound patterns. Technical term from linguistics.
Also Known As
Paired phoneme Phonetic doublet Sound coupling Binary phone
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