Transcription systems; transcription of babbling

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Manuel,
    My recommendation is to transcribe in IPA using a Unicode font.  IPA
allows a variety of diacritics.  Hopefully they are enough for you.
Using IPA is particularly easy to do in CLAN on the Macintosh, although
you can also do this on Windows with Tavultesoft Keyman.
There are instructions about how to do this on the CHILDES website.
Yvan Rose and I are also currently working on an analysis program
called PHON that will build on the %pho line in CHAT files to produce
segmental and prosodic analyses of various types.  We plan to make this
all applicable to babbling.  My suggestion is to remain in contact with
Yvan Rose (yrose at mun.ca) regarding this.

--Brian MacWhinney

On Nov 3, 2004, at 5:11 AM, Manuel Kountz wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> For doing transcriptions of babbling we are currently in the need of a
> suitable transcription system - XSAMPA and UNIBET seem to lack some
> diacritics, especially for onglide/offglide phenomena. (Up to now we
> are using pure XSAMPA but will make any necessary transitions towards
> UNIBET as soon as possible.)
>
> Thus, I have two questions:
>
> a) Can someone please help me finding a more complete solution?
> "Augmenting" XSAMPA with own diacritics is an opportunity, but the
> very last choice. Are there any computer transcription systems (not
> using Unicode/IPA) with more complete possibilites? (I'm also
> interestet in this question besides transriptions of babbling.)
>
> b) What do you recommend me to do? The problem at which the question
> arises are CV frames like [ba], where the transition from [b] to [a]
> is rather long and comprises a bilabial approximant like structure
> which is not really separable from the vowel. Thus, it seems
> reasonable to annote these different qualities, but not to impose an
> artificial segmentation on it. How would you annote such phenomena?
>
> I'd be glad to hear from other people doing babbling transcriptions in
> order to share and learn from practical experience.
>
> Best regards,
>
>    Manuel Kountz
>
>
>