316 BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOURNAL 



For some purposes weighting lists based on the words of speech which 

 carry the meaning are appropriate. This is approximated to by the 

 figures given in Table X, in which the sounds are analyzed for nouns, 

 verbs, adjectives and adverbs only. The outstanding changes in the 

 weighting of initial consonants have just been commented on in con- 



TABLE XI 



Relative Occurrenxe of Speech Sounds in Telephone Conversations 



Conversational Weighting 



Note: The sounds of each word are weighted b}' the number of conversations in 

 which the word is used, instead of by the total occurrences of the word. 



Vowels Initial Consonants Final Consonants 



pin 11.22 W 8.26 r 13.87 



pen 7.90 T 7.09 t 11.98 



pan 6.40 M 6.69 n 10.92 



peel 6.21 D 6.52 1 8.13 



pine 5.95 K 5.90 m 5.43 



pane 5.60 S 5.90 d 5.20 



pole 5.18 L 5.44 z 5.13 



pun 4.66 B 5.32 ng 4.05 



pawn 4.64 H 5.31 v 3.72 



pot 4.08 N 5.09 s 3.64 



pool 3.40 TH" 5.01 k 3.41 



pull 3.24 F 4.10 p 1.55 



pout 1.89 G 4.00 f 1.41 



par 1.33 R 3.53 th" 1.18 



pair 1.31 Y 3.17 ch 65 



purr 1.11 P 3.09 b 52 



pew 38 SH 2.09 g 49 



poise 24 TH' 2.06 sh 45 



V 1.43 j 17 



74.74 J 94 th' 06 



CH 74 zh 02 



Unaccented Vowels Z .47 h • — 



ZH 03 w — 



about 5.39 XG — y — 



differ 5.35 



receive 4.85 92.18 81.98 



possible 3.57 



notion 2.69 Compounds Compounds 



wanted 2.16 



people 1.25 PR 1.27 nt 4.68 



ST 1.06 nd 2.09 



25.26 HW 1.03 st 1.43 



TR 82 ts 1.14 



FR 62 Id 89 



100.00 PL 49 nk 71 



Total Xumber. . . 54,656 KW 40 rz 63 



BL 30 ks 61 



SP 26 k-t 56 



KL 26 rd 51 



Others 131 Others 4.77 



7.82 18.02 



100.00 100.00 



39,924 40,993 



