Distribution of sounds within and between Spanish syllables

Abstract

The data presented in this work area complement to a previous statistical count [M. Guirao and M. García Jurado, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 78, S55 (1985)]. A corpus of 68141 syllables distributed in 159464 phonemes was used. This time our attention was oriented toward (a) distribution of sounds in each one of four syllabic positions, and (b) distribution in final position according to number of elements in the syllable. The first count indicates that fricative /s/, bursts /t k d p b/, and periodic sounds /n m l r/ cover about 80% of all items in first position. The second position in syllables of two or more components (64572 syllables) is taken mainly by vowels /e a o/. In the third position (22736 syllables) predominate /s/, /e a/, and /r n/. In the remaining syllables (3956) only /n/ and /s/ were found in the fourth position. The second count indicates that final sounds in two components syllables are vowels, 96%. With three components, /s n r/ scored 58%, /a e/ 24%, and /1/ 12%. With four, /n/ 40%, /s/ 29%, and /l r m/ 16%. With five components, /n/ 58%, /s/ 30%, and /l/ 5%. Sounds are classed according to their position and distribution within and between syllables.