Most common sound for words ending in letter "a"

Tue Feb 10 20:25:05 UTC 2009

Ah yes, Wa Wa, my favorite convenience store.  I miss them since leaving NJ.

This analysis uses only the 5k most frequent words appearing a large sample of media print (newspapers magazines) by Collins Cobuild.  Surprisingly, several names appear in the sample.  In my estimation based on the decreasing frequencies of the remaining words, that these words in the 5k sample represent about 90% of the words on a newspaper page.

The analysis shows how easily the truespel database, which is spreadsheet friendly, can be used to analyze phoneme frequency, as was done in truespel books 1 and 4.

The 60k word truespel database is available for those wishing to do research.  No schwas are in the phoneme set.  All schwas are spelled out as to the sound (phoneme) they represent, which can be 4 or 5 phonemes.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com

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> Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:38:52 -0500
> From: laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
> Subject: Re: Most common sound for words ending in letter "a"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Laurence Horn
> Subject: Re: Most common sound for words ending in letter "a"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 11:16 AM -0600 2/10/09, Scot LaFaive wrote:
>>And what nugget of wisdom are we to take away from this data?
>>
>>Scot
>
> The generalization is not quite accurate as it
> stands, either, however profound it may or may
> not be. Besides "ma", "pa" and other
> monosyllabic exceptions to the generalization,
> there would be instances of stressed final
> syllables; "mama" and "papa" end in schwa if they
> have penult stress, but /a/ if they're stressed
> finally (more common with "papa", I'd think). I
> pronounce "dada" with two /a/ vowels if I'm
> referring to the art movement and ditto "tata"
> ('goodbye') and "caca" ('poop'). (Maybe there's
> a subregularity affecting words derived from
> baby-talk, where reduplication is more of a
> factor than least-effort vowel reduction?*) In
> any case, the mapping between orthographic final
> a and schwa...oops, ~u/uh wouldn't be 100% of
> polysyllables in a somewhat larger database. Bla
> bla bla.
>
> LH, thinking that one application of
> investigating such correlations would be building
> a text-reader for the blind, or the lazy.
>
> *and it extends to other cases of reduplication;
> the Wawa chain of convenience stores in the
> Northeast is regularly pronounced /'wa "wa/, not
> /'wa w@/, where " indicates secondary stress.
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>On 2/10/09, Tom Zurinskas wrote:
>>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>>> Poster: Tom Zurinskas
>>> Subject: Most common sound for words ending in letter "a"
>>>
>>>
>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> I looked at the truespel database for words ending in letter "a" to see how
>>> they're pronounced as I interpret talking dictionaires saying them. If you
>>> discount words "sea, tea, la, ta, ha" the sound is 100% ~u (uh). Note, I
>>> estimate that the top 5k words make up about 90% of the words seen on a page
>>> of typical text. They are the most popular words.
>>>
>>> The copied spreadsheet data at bottom are in the following 4 columns:
>>> tradspel ~truespel count phoneme
>>>
>>> tz
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Count of last vowel sounds for words ending in "a"
>>> by Tom Zurinskas - using the truespel spreadsheet database
>>>
>>> Data are from Collins Cobuild (15 million words in text)
>>> for the top 5,000 English words in common media text.
>>> My phonetic interpretation is as heard from two USA talking dictionaries
>>>
>>> Results
>>> For 99% of USA English words ending in the letter "a"
>>> the sound is ~u (uh) as in the most common word "a."
>>> Also, take the word "a" out, and it's 84%.
>>>
>>> Sound instances words top word
>>> ~u (uh) 455798 38 a
>>> ~ee 4412 2 tea
>>> ~aa (ah) 1515 3 la
>>> 461725
>>>
>>> instance count 455,798
>>> word count 43
>>>
>>> tradspel ~truespel count phoneme
>>>
>>> a ~u 419,798 ~u
>>> idea ~ieddeeyu 4,847 ~u
>>> area ~aireeyu 3,558 ~u
>>> sea ~see 2,831 ~ee
>>> America ~Ummairiku 2,417 ~u
>>> Africa ~Afriku 2,057 ~u
>>> tea ~tee 1,581 ~ee
>>> extra ~ekstru 1,432 ~u
>>> china ~Chienu 1,106 ~u
>>> India ~Indeeyu 1,058 ~u
>>> data ~daetu 831 ~u
>>> Barbara ~Baarbru 829 ~u
>>> media ~meedeeyu 766 ~u
>>> Australia ~austrralyu 657 ~u
>>> California ~Kaliffornyu 636 ~u
>>> la ~laa 625 ~aa
>>> Rhoda ~Roedu 616 ~u
>>> Russia ~Rushu 569 ~u
>>> Frederica ~Frederreeku 557 ~u
>>> ta ~taa 516 ~aa
>>> propaganda ~praapuggandu 477 ~u
>>> Asia ~Aezhu 461 ~u
>>> flora ~floru 442 ~u
>>> Eva ~Eevu 437 ~u
>>> formula ~formyuelu 429 ~u
>>> camera ~kamru 425 ~u
>>> Canada ~Kanudu 422 ~u
>>> opera ~aapru 407 ~u
>>> era ~eeru 407 ~u
>>> drama ~draamu 404 ~u
>>> Ira ~Ieru 377 ~u
>>> ha ~haa 374 ~aa
>>> sofa ~soefu 360 ~u
>>> via ~veeyu 336 ~u
>>> vita ~veetu 331 ~u
>>> Virginia ~Verjjinyu 318 ~u
>>> Etta ~Etu 318 ~u
>>> Cuba ~Kyuebu 317 ~u
>>> cinema ~sinimu 313 ~u
>>> Victoria ~Vikttoreeyu 294 ~u
>>> Patricia ~Putrrishyu 292 ~u
>>> Marsha ~Maarshu 290 ~u
>>> Scylla ~Silu 280 ~u
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
>>> see truespel.com
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>>
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