Minimal Pair List RP phonemes in the Advanced Learner's Dictionary


   Minimal pair: RP phonemes in the Advanced Learner's Dictionary pairs

(1974 electronic edition with Roger Mitton's 1992 additions)

Total number of words in the dictionary: 70,646
Total number of symbols in the dictionary pronunciation field: 492,745

Figures for running words in transcribed spoken text from D.B.Fry, 1947, cited in Crystal, 1995.

Vowels Keyword Total Words in dictionary Freq. rank in spoken text Freq. rank

i

bead

6721

6525

1.36%

9

1.65%

7

ɪ

bid

51830

37729

10.52%

1

8.33%

2

e

bed

11312

10940

2.30%

4

2.97%

3

æ

bad

11603

11149

2.35%

3

1.45%

9

ɑ

bard

4215

4141

0.86%

14

0.79%

14

ɒ

pot

7960

7747

1.62%

6

1.37%

10

ɔ

port

4730

4627

0.96%

12

1.24%

11

ʊ

put

1977

1959

0.40%

17

0.86%

13

u

boot

4794

4743

0.97%

11

1.13%

12

ʌ

bud

7124

6917

1.45%

8

1.75%

5

ɜ

bird

3095

3083

0.63%

15

0.52%

16

ə

another

31009

26813

6.29%

2

10.74%

1

bait

10234

10029

2.08%

5

1.71%

6

bite

7441

7236

1.51%

7

1.83%

4

boy

788

784

0.16%

20

0.14%

19

cow

2179

2135

0.44%

16

0.61%

15

əʊ

no

6685

6416

1.36%

10

1.51%

8

ɪə

beer

4174

4034

0.85%

13

0.21%

18

bear

965

962

0.20%

19

0.34%

17

ʊə

poor

1053

1053

0.21%

18

0.06%

20

Consonants

p

pop

15553

14569

3.16%

9

1.78%

15

b

bib

10907

10420

2.21%

11

1.97%

13

t

teat

34260

29441

6.95%

1

6.42%

2

d

died

21275

19125

4.32%

7

5.14%

3

k

cake

22453

20308

4.56%

6

3.09%

9

g

go

6239

6079

1.27%

14

1.05%

18

ʧ

chin

2672

2639

0.54%

21

0.41%

22

ʤ

judge

3869

3802

0.79%

18

0.60%

21

f

fine

8839

8606

1.79%

13

1.79%

14

v

vine

6007

5859

1.22%

16

2.00%

12

Ɵ

think

1602

1591

0.33%

22

0.37%

23

ð

then

596

593

0.12%

23

3.56%

6

s

see

33922

28548

6.88%

2

4.81%

4

z

zoo

19972

18808

4.05%

8

2.46%

11

ʃ

shy

6117

6039

1.24%

15

0.96%

19

ʒ

treasure

334

334

0.07%

24

0.10%

24

m

my

14823

13988

3.01%

10

3.22%

8

n

near

31934

27020

6.48%

3

7.58%

1

ŋ

sing

9181

8958

1.86%

12

1.15%

17

l

low

27373

25435

5.56%

4

3.66%

5

r

raw

23069

21434

4.68%

5

3.51%

7

w

west

4600

4523

0.93%

17

2.81%

10

j

year

3560

3518

0.72%

20

0.88%

20

h

high

3699

3625

0.75%

19

1.46%

16


Notes:

Column 1 contains vowel or consonant phonetic characters. Column 2 shows an illustrative keyword.
Column 3 shows the total number of occurrences of the sound in the dictionary and column 4 the number of words in which it occurred. (The difference between these two corresponds to the number of words in which the sound occurs more than once.)
Column 5 is column 3 as a percentage of 492,745, the total number of symbols in the pronunciation field in the dictionary. Column 6 shows the frequency rank of the sound, separately calculated for vowels and consonants. Columns 7 and 8 are frequency as percentage and rank for transcribed running speech.

Average number of vowel symbols per dictionary word: 2.55 or 36.3%
Average number of consonant symbols per dictionary word: 4.43 or 63.7%
Balance of vowels and consonants in connected speech sample: 39.2% : 60.8%.

Notice the difference in frequencies of consonants between the dictionary list and the speech text, partly accounted for by the high frequency of the function words with /ð/ such as the and that . The data for transcribed running speech are affected by the transcription used. The research was done a long time ago (1947) so it may be that a careful style of speech was recorded and a broad transcription used. Some evidence for this is the relatively high ranking for /h/ , suggesting that the words he, his, her, have, has and had have always been transcribed with initial /h/ . I have not seen the original research so cannot be sure.

References:

Crystal, David (1995). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press.
Fry, D.B. (1947). "The frequency of occurrence of speech sounds in Southern English." Archives Néerlandaises de Phonétique Experimentales , 20.