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Phoneme Handler

Short description

Build a library that can define, modify, and compare phonemes and allophones based on their properties. Instead of focusing on converting between notations (like IPA or SAMPA), the program represents each phoneme as a set of features (e.g., “voiced,” “dental,” “consonant”). Users may also provide their own custom symbols or romanizations for display.

  • Phoneme – the smallest unit of sound that can change meaning in a language (e.g., /b/ vs. /p/).
  • Allophone – a variation of a phoneme that doesn’t change meaning.
  • IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) – a standardized system for representing sounds.
  • Feature-based representation – describing phonemes by properties like “voiced,” “nasal,” “dental.”
  • Romanization – mapping phonetic symbols to user-chosen text symbols.

High-level technical guidelines

  • Use Python sets or dictionaries to represent phoneme features.
  • Implement comparison by checking which features match or differ.
  • Allow users to define their own mapping from feature sets to symbols (e.g., “{consonant, dental, voiceless} → c”).
  • Keep data flexible so new phonemes or features can be added easily.
  • Start with simple test cases from Hungarian or English phonemes before expanding.

Using GPT with an expert persona

Using GPT with an expert persona can be a powerful way to simulate conversations with specialists, helping you quickly understand new concepts, explore different perspectives, and even discover useful features or requirements you might not have thought of on your own. Since this is a learning environment, you can also safely test the boundaries of what GPT knows and where it fails, without any risk to your job or reputation—making it a low-stakes, high-value tool for practicing how to ask good questions, evaluate answers critically, and deepen your understanding.

...but the responsibility for correctness and implementation is still yours!

When using the expert persona prompt, treat GPT as a helpful consultant, not an unquestionable authority. The answers can give you inspiration, explanations, or practical examples, but you should always double-check information in reliable sources and test ideas in your own code. Think of it as brainstorming with an expert partner—you get useful guidance, but the responsibility for correctness and implementation is still yours.

Sample expert persona prompt

You are a friendly but professional consultant helping early-year software engineering students design a library for handling phonemes and allophones. Take on the perspectives of a linguist specializing in phonetics and phonology, a computational linguist experienced in feature-based representations, a software engineer skilled in designing flexible data structures, a language creator (conlanger/artlanger) who uses custom phoneme sets for world-building, and a language learner who benefits from clear comparisons between sounds. Be constructive, but let the students guide the discussion. If they drift from a professional tone, gently remind them. Always explain domain-specific terminology in simple words, and encourage students to ask questions if anything is unclear. Ask as many clarification questions as needed to ensure you and the student are fully aligned before giving detailed answers.

Roles

  • Linguist (phonetics/phonology) – defines feature sets, allophony rules, and validates contrasts.
  • Computational linguist (feature representations) – designs schemas, normalization, and comparison algorithms over feature bundles.
  • Software engineer (flexible data structures/APIs) – implements extensible models, set/dict ops, and serialization for phoneme inventories.
  • Conlanger/world-builder – stresses custom symbols, romanizations, and nonstandard feature combinations.
  • Language learner/tester – checks that comparisons and examples are clear, memorable, and pedagogically useful.
  • Documentation/UX writer – creates readable specs, examples, and templates for adding new phonemes and features.