Alignment, which can be done with writing-system-specific rules or with a probabilistic algorithm (our preferred choice), takes care of the correct one-to-one mapping from letters to phonemes. Some letter groups (graphemes) are associated with one phoneme; in those cases, the first letter of the grapheme maps to the phoneme, and the rest map to "-". (In case of letters mapping to multiple phonemes, like "x" in "taxi", we introduce compound phonemes, such as "X").

Stress, an integral part of word pronunciation, is treated in the same way as phonemes, thus needs to be recoded.

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Last update: 25 January 2000