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But, we may still ask, out of the thousands ofwords in English with positive and desirablemeanings, why have these particular ones beenchosen? Several turn up on more than one listautumn, caress, crystal, dawn, golden, gos-

samer, lullaby, marigold, mellifluous, melody,mist, myrrh, peace, rosemary, tranquil 3times), velvet, whisper). Is there somethingabout the phonetics of these words which

makes them so attractive? Which phonologicalpatterns are most involved?

It is a useful exercise to stop at this point, andjot down the sound effects which strike you asbeing particularly important, in the above lists,before comparing your list with the results ofthe analysis below. The task is to notice notonly which sounds and sound patterns are frequently used, but also - rather more difficultwhich are not used at all. Ugly words, pre

sumably, would use these missing soundsrather more often.

For this exercise, I made a phonological profile of the distribution of the sounds in thesewords, marking where in a syllable a soundoccurred, the number of syllables in the word,and where the stress fell. Such a profile enablesthe analyst to see at a glance which sounds areused, and how often, and which sounds are notused at all. I used the analysis of the Englishsound system as it is presented in A C GimsonsIntroduction to the Pronunciation of English(Edward Arnold, 5th edition, 1994), andassumed Received Pronunciation. Here are themain findings. (Phonetic symbols are glossedin Panel 1.)

onsonants

The consonants clearly divide into twotypes: high frequency and low frequency. Just

eight items account for 73 (274) of all consonants: /V is top, with 59 instances (16 ), fol-

honetic symbols ~ of all PhonaestheticN/ of allof allwordssegments 625onsonants 377

n

7.58 I9/9.445.65.42 ill0/6.400.61.14 s5/5.60.28.81 n3/5.28.75.66 r9/4.64.69.56 k8/4.48.43.51 t6/4.16.90.22 d4/3.84 6.37 .09 f2/1.92 3.18.81 b1/1. 76.92.46 p0/1.60.65.00 v11.28.12.97 IJ8/1.28.12.79 w/1.28.12.78 g/1.12.86.46 z/1.12.86.15 J/1.12.86.05 h/0.96.59J

0.96 g/0.80.33.88 cB/0.80.33.60 J/0.80.33.41 e/0.48.80.37 3/0.16.26.10 Cl0

PHON ESTHETI LLY SPE KING 9

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ow ls

g 10.748.33

2.97.83.75.71.65.51.45.37:

1.24.13.86:

0.79.61.52.34.21I

0.14g

0.06

N/ ofall

of all vowels 248)

g

61/9.76 24.604917.84

19.76

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What about grouping sequences of consonants into manner of articulation categories(e.g. plosive, fricative, nasal, continuant)? If aword contains an Iml will there be anothernasal consonant following in the word? Herethere is a major preference (84:16 ) in favourof changing the type of consonant. A wordapparently sounds prettier if the manner ofconsonantal articulation changes as the sylla

bles pass by. The voicing pattern within a word seems tobe of little interest. Only 132 (35 ) of the consonants are voiceless, but this is almost exactlythe proportion we would expect in everydayconversation. This carries through into theword patterns: if a consonant is voiced, there isa 60 chance that the next consonant is alsogoing to be voiced; if a consonant is voiceless,there is a 30 chance that the next one is alsogoing to be voiceless.

Vowels

Of the 172 vowels, the unstressed vowel Iglis commonest (61), showing that words ofmore than one syllable are preferred. Of the 114words, only 25 are monosyllabic, in fact; thelargest category (45) is words of three or more

syllables. Of these, 29 (65 ) have the chiefstress on the first syllable .

The other common vowel is II (49), whichoccurs over twice as often as the next vowel1a;1 (24), followed by lel li:/ lail etc. (seePanel 1b). This is close to the vowel rankings ofeveryday conversation. The only pure vowelwhich is not used at all is lul (as in put . People have the impression that long pure vowels

are important in phonaesthetically pleasingwords: in fact, four of the five long vowels arenot even in the top ten of the vowel list. Diphthongs do better.

If we look at vowels in terms of where theyare articulated in the mouth - whether at thefront (or, in the case of diphthongs, starting atthe front) (e.g. la; ar/ central (e.g. /g, gu/),or back (e.g. lu: JI/ we find an interestingpattern. There are more front vowels here thanin everyday conversation (20 vs. 15.5 ).There is also a strong tendency for a polysyllabic phonaesthetic word to start with a vowelin the front position (in 52 cases; 58 ) andthen either to continue using front vowels laterin the word (e.g. camelia or to have these

PHON ESTHETIC LLY SPE KING

aprice in consonantsSome words have such a lovely soundIt's pleasant to roll them round and roundAnd savor their syllables on the tongue,Words like oriole, melody, young.

Other words, though, of ungracefulletter,Harsh, abrasive, ... sound even better

These are words of intrinsic beaury,Service, conscience, kindliness, dury.

- Alma Denny, New York

other vowels move in a backwards direction(e.g. apricot; 40 cases; 45 ). There are nocases of words in which all the vowels arefound in the back position; and there are only

10 instances (12 ) where the word beginswith a back vowel and has later vowels furtherforward (e.g. autumn . Similarly, there areonly 13 cases (15 ) where the word beginswith a central vowel, with later vowels eitherstaying central or moving further forward (e.g.murmuring . There is no real trend for a wordof three syllables or more to have its vowelsspread between front, central, and back (e.g.sycamore a pattern found in only 13 out of 45

cases (29 ). If we look at vowel articulation in terms ofwhether the vowels are high mid or low in themouth, there is less to say. There are no realdifferences here compared with the proportions found in everyday conversation. The onlystrong tendency is for a polysyllabic word tobegin with a vowel in mid or low position (66cases; 76 ) and for later vowels in the word to

move in an upwards direction e.g. ivory; 26cases, 58 ). Only 12 cases (27 ) move in theopposite direction, starting high, and endingup low (e.g. syllabub .

If these trends are respectable, given the smallsample, it is possible to see how we can createphonaesthetically pleasing new words. Itwould seem advisable to give them three syllables, to stress the first syllable, to use at leastone Iml or III (preferably both), to introducehigh-frequency consonants and avoid low-frequency ones, to have at least three differentmanners of consonantal articulation, to keepthe vowels short, and to have the vowels movefrom mid towards high, and from front towardsback.

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m trix of criteri

3+tresssessesseofo use+ diffOnlyront>ow>n 1stmlVtherf lowannerhortCentrelidi highreq Csf articsackigh jjX jj jjjxxx xxjjX jjXjX jXjXjX X.a.X.a..a. X.a.jn.a..a. X.a.jX.a..a. X.a..a..a.

n.a. = not applicable

m trix of criteri

We can see this more clearly if we construct amatrix with these ten criteria across the topand candidate words down the side (see Panel2 . Tremulous from the above listings, scores10 out of 10, alyssum 9. On the other hand, several of the words in these listings have very little going for them: tart scores 2; zoo scoreszero Words which have scores of less than

about 6 are probably in a list chiefly because oftheir meaning rather than their sound.

And ugly words? We can of course use thematrix to test the opposite effect. A group ofelocutionists once produced a listing of whatthey considered to be the ten ugliest-soundingwords in the language: flatulent treacherycrunch phlegmatic sap jazz plutocrat cacoph-ony gripe plump. Are these genuinely unpleas

ant in sound, or is it the meaning which is theroot of the objection? The phonaestheticmatrix shows that some of them are actuallyquite pleasant-sounding, really. Phlegmaticscores 7 out of 10, and flatulent 8. On the otherhand, there seems to be very little going forgripe and jazz (both lout of 10).

Using this approach, we could probably

extend our list of pretty words quite substantially, to include such items as emulate andalumnus. We could also start thinking uppretty words which do not yet exist, such asramelon and drematol (though of course suchword-forms may already be used to make nicesounding names for pharmaceuticals andother products). The matrix also suggests why,if we wanted to write a romantic poem about,

say, London Underground stations, our listwould very likely include Pimlico and Colin-dale but exclude Goodge Street and Wapping.And why friendly space aliens receive suchnames as Alaree and Osnomian why enemynames include Vatch and Triops and why Klin-gons are likely to be just a tad less aggressivethan Kryptons. lE[j

cknowledgement

The phonological profiling procedure isadapted from D. Crystal, Profiling LinguisticDisability (London: Whurr, 2nd edn, 1992). Iam also grateful to V. J. Cook of the Universityof Essex for a sight of his collection of aliensnames.

12 ENGLISH TODAY 4 April 995