On the statistics of spoken English

Abstract

A variety of statistical information about spoken English was obtained. The data are the results of analyzing a considerable body of conversational material and narrative taken from “Phonetic Readers”; the analyses were carried out by using a digital computer. The principles for selecting the speech material are discussed. Counts were obtained for the frequency of occurrence of phonemes, for the digram frequencies of phonemes, for word length, etc. Stress was taken into consideration, and many of the statistics were obtained separately for stressed and unstressed syllables. In addition, the frequency distribution of minimal pairs was obtained. Minimal pairs are the phoneme pairs that minimally distinguish one word from another. All results were evaluated from the articulatory point of view. It was found that, in spoken English, dental and alveolar articulations predominate and that manner rather than place of articulation is the dimension that carries by far the greatest functional load.