The Frequency of Occurrence of Speech Sounds in Spoken English

Abstract

This paper presents some results of a study of the words used in telephone conversations. These show that many words have a much higher relative occurrence in conversation than in written matter, and that conversation in general is characterized by a more intensive use of its commonest words than written matter. Curves are presented showing the number of different words found among a given total number of words, not only in individual conversations but also in samples as high as 10,000 total words. Finally the paper shows the distribution of the fundamental sounds of speech in conversation and shows the differences in the relative occurrence of the speech sounds in conversation as compared with written matter, in nouns as compared with verbs, adjectives, etc., and in the few frequently used words as compared with the many infrequently used words. The results are based on about 80,000 recorded words.