Regularity in the phonemic subsystem of English spelling: A study of the monosyllables

Brett Kessler

A list of 4,724 English monosyllables was studied in an effort to determine the degree of regularity in writing words according to the standard orthography of American English. The spelling and pronunciation of the words were aligned semi-automatically, and these alignments were used to gather data on how individual phonemes are spelt in various phonetic environments. The data were also used to build a set of rules for reducing English words to writing; the complexity of these rules was then used as another measure of regularity.

• Verbal report, as a LaTeX 2e source file or a PostScript file.
• Computer-generated reports on how sounds are spelt, and computations of the complexity.
  • Spellings after specific phones.
  • Spellings before specific phones.
  • Consonants.
    • Consonants that are the first member of a cluster.
    • Consonants in the onset (preceding the vowel).
      • Word-initial.
        • Followed by a consonant.
        • Followed by a vowel.
      • Preceded by another consonant.
    • Consonants in the rime (following the vowel).
      • Spellings of consonants that are in the rime and precede another consonant.
      • Word-final.
        • After a vowel.
        • After another consonant.
  • Vowels.
    • Word-initial.
    • Preceded and followed by a consonant.
    • Word-final.
• Word list: spellings, pronunciations, alignment between the two, and frequency.
• Alignments presented more graphically.
• Alignment rules.