Polyad quantum numbers have been assigned to 134 vibrational levels of the (X) over tilde(1) Sigma(g)(+) state of acetylene with internal energies from 3,000 to 15,000 cm(-1). These polyad assignments have been made possible by two advances : (1) the recording of new, rigorously calibrated acetylene (A) over tilde(1)A(u)-->(X) over tilde(1) Sigma(g)(+) dispersed fluorescence spectra, and (2) the development of a numerical pattern recognition technique which identifies groups of transitions in the spectra that terminate on eigenstates with the same polyad quantum numbers. This pattern recognition technique is based on the Extended Cross-Correlation, which has been reported previously in this Journal [J. Chern. Phys. 107, 8349, 8357 (1997)], and requires neither a priori knowledge of the number of polyads in the spectra nor the pattern of spectral lines that is associated with each polyad. No evidence for the breakdown of the polyad quantum numbers is found, at the 7 cm(-1) resolution of our spectra, at internal energies up to at least 15,000 cm(-1). The ability to assign polyad quantum numbers to spectral features with up to 15,000 cm(-1) of internal energy provides a panoramic perspective on the trends in the short-time (similar to 1 ps) dynamics of acetylene at high internal energy.