THE WORDS AND SOUNDS OF TELEPHONE CONVERSATION 323 



The word list is characterized by a large percentage of monosyllables. 

 Over four fifths of the 80,000 occurrences are of this type, a result 

 largely brought about by the frequent repetition of the minor parts of 

 speech, among which 95 per cent are monosyllables. When the words 

 are analyzed into phonetic syllables about one fifth are found to be of 

 the type vowel-consonant, about one fifth consonant- vowel, and a 

 third of the type consonant-vowel-consonant. 



The relative occurrences of the different speech sounds were obtained 

 by assigning phonetic values to the sounds of the phonetic syllables 

 and weighting each by the total number of times it was used. Twenty- 

 five categories are used for the vowels. Seven of these are for vowels 

 in unaccented positions, which make up, altogether, about 25 per cent 

 of the vowels. The relative occurrences of the individual sounds differ 

 greatly for different vowels. The range extends from about 10 per 

 cent for the vowel of "pin," and about 8 per cent for the vowel of 

 "pine," down to 0.3 per cent for "pew" and 0.2 per cent for "poise." 

 Among the initial consonants 94 per cent are single sounds, and the 

 remaining are compounds of two or more successive consonants. The 

 range extends from about 9 per cent for "w," and about 8 per cent for 

 "t" down to about 0.3 per cent for "z" and the slightest trace, .02 

 per cent for "zh." The most frequent compound initial consonant is 

 "pr," with an occurrence of 1 per cent. Among the final consonants 

 the compounds are somewhat more prominent, forming 16 per cent. 

 The most frequent final consonant is "t," 14 per cent, the next is "r," 

 13 per cent, the range extending down to 0.1 per cent for "zh." The 

 most frequent compound final consonant is "nt," 4.4 per cent, and the 

 next is "nd," 2.6 per cent. 



Considering the marked differences between the word lists for 

 conversa4;ion and for written English, a comparison of the relative 

 frequency of the speech sounds in the two cases is perhaps more remark- 

 able for the likenesses than the difTerences. About the same range of 

 percentages is covered in both cases. Certain sounds do show marked 

 difTerences. Among the vowels the unaccented vowel denoted by 

 "about" is more frequent in conversation and the vowel of "pan" less 

 frequent. The initial "y" and the final "t" are also more frequent in 

 conversation. Many of the differences can be traced directly to one or 

 two words which in their frequent use are typical of conversation. 



In considering the occurrence of speech sounds in telephone conversa- 

 tions from the point of view of their contribution to the ease or diflfi- 

 culty of carrying on conversations it seemed of interest to determine 

 how the occurrence of the speech sounds was affected by changing the 

 list in certain ways. Omission of the minor parts of speech changes the 



