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Equal sound

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

Phonetic elements matched in loudness, duration, timbre, or articulatory quality to produce balanced, resonant, or harmonious sonic effects in verse.

Detailed Definition
A technical term for acoustic elements matched in intensity, duration, or phonetic quality, creating sonic equivalence in poetry. Related to concepts of assonance, consonance, and alliteration, equal sound describes how poets create musical effects through careful selection of phonetically similar elements. This attention to acoustic properties helps create euphony, emphasis, or other sound-based effects in verse composition.
Example
Example in poetry:
Equal sound denotes perfect or near-perfect sonic matching: Shakespeare’s “love/dove” in Sonnet 10; Emily Dickinson’s slant rhymes like “light/night”; Gerard Manley Hopkins’ “sprung rhythm” creates internal sonic equality; contemporary examples include Terrance Hayes’ intricate rhyme schemes; Paul Muldoon’s “Yarrow” uses deceptive near-rhymes with semantic precision.
Additional Notes
Technical term for acoustic analysis of poetry. Related to concepts of assonance, consonance, and alliteration. Useful for understanding how poets create musical effects through sound matching.
Also Known As
Phonetic match Acoustic equivalence Sound correspondence Equisonance
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