Phonostatistics¶

ests.phon_stats.PhonStats

Description¶

A module for computing the phonostatistics of a text: the shares of the classes of sounds, the consonant clusters, the hiatuses, the variety of the phonetic shape of the words, the open syllables, and the indices of alliteration and assonance, which tell whether the repetitions of a sound gather in neighbouring words. The data source can be either a text or a Doc object of the spaCy library; no trained model is needed.

The statistics are counted over the sounds of the transcription of the words (transcribe), not over the letters: ch, ll, rr and qu are one sound, h and the u of que and gui none, and x two. The pronunciation is the one of the standard of Spain: yeísmo (ll and y are one sound) and distinción (c before e and i and z are θ, apart from s).

Class	Sounds
Vowels	a, e, i, o, u
Sonorants	m, n, ɲ (`ñ`), l, r (the tap and the trill are one sound)
Voiced obstruents	b (`b`, `v`), d, g, ʝ (`y`, `ll`)
Voiceless obstruents	p, t, k (`c`, `qu`, `k`), f, θ (`c`, `z`), s, x (`j`, `g`), tʃ (`ch`)

The syllables are the ones of syllabify, by the orthographic rules, and a hiatus is two vowels in two neighbouring syllables of a word (po-e-ta, dí-a, bú-ho).

Note

The statistics are computed when the PhonStats object is made. The statistics and the functions that compute them are described in the corresponding section.

Parameters¶

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`source`	str/Doc	`-`	Data source (a string or a Doc object)
`words_extractor`	WordsExtractor	`None`	Word extraction tool
`window_len`	int	`3`	Window in words for the alliteration and the assonance

Attributes¶

Attribute	Type	Description
`words`	tuple[str]	Tuple of the extracted words in lower case
`syllables`	tuple[tuple[str]]	Tuple of the syllables of every word
`sounds`	tuple[tuple[str]]	Tuple of the sounds of every word
`n_vowels`	int	Number of vowels
`n_consonants`	int	Number of consonants
`n_sonorants`	int	Number of sonorant consonants
`n_voiced`	int	Number of voiced obstruents
`n_voiceless`	int	Number of voiceless obstruents
`c_clusters`	dict[int, int]	Distribution of the consonant clusters by length
`c_syllable_patterns`	dict[str, int]	Distribution of the syllables by CV pattern
`p_vowels`	float	Share of vowels among the sounds
`p_sonorants`	float	Share of sonorant consonants among the sounds
`p_voiced`	float	Share of voiced obstruents among the sounds
`p_voiceless`	float	Share of voiceless obstruents among the sounds
`consonant_vowel_ratio`	float	Ratio of consonants to vowels
`p_heavy_clusters`	float	Share of the clusters of 3 consonants or more
`p_hiatus`	float	Hiatuses per word
`cv_entropy`	float	Entropy of the CV patterns of the words in bits
`hardness`	float	Ratio of the voiceless obstruents to the vowels and the sonorants
`alliteration`	float	Alliteration index
`assonance`	float	Assonance index
`p_open_syllables`	float	Share of open syllables
`mean_syllable_len`	float	Mean length of a syllable in sounds

Methods¶

get_stats¶

Returns a dictionary with the computed phonostatistics.

Example

from ests import PhonStats

ps = PhonStats("Tres tristes tigres tragaban trigo en un trigal")
ps.get_stats()
# {'p_vowels': 0.35,
#  'p_sonorants': 0.25,
#  'p_voiced': 0.125,
#  'p_voiceless': 0.275,
#  'consonant_vowel_ratio': 1.8571428571428572,
#  'p_heavy_clusters': 0.0,
#  'p_hiatus': 0.0,
#  'cv_entropy': 2.75,
#  'hardness': 0.4583333333333333,
#  'alliteration': 0.9175627240143369,
#  'assonance': 0.6708595387840671,
#  'p_open_syllables': 0.42857142857142855,
#  'mean_syllable_len': 2.857142857142857}

ps.syllables[:3], ps.sounds[:2]
# ((('tres',), ('tris', 'tes'), ('ti', 'gres')),
#  (('t', 'r', 'e', 's'), ('t', 'r', 'i', 's', 't', 'e', 's')))

print_stats¶

Prints a table with the computed phonostatistics.

Example

Code:

from ests import PhonStats

# The first stanza of Sonatina by Rubén Darío (Prosas profanas, 1896)
sonatina = (
    "La princesa está triste... ¿qué tendrá la princesa?\n"
    "Los suspiros se escapan de su boca de fresa,\n"
    "que ha perdido la risa, que ha perdido el color.\n"
    "La princesa está pálida en su silla de oro,\n"
    "está mudo el teclado de su clave sonoro;\n"
    "y en un vaso olvidada se desmaya una flor."
)
PhonStats(sonatina).print_stats()

Result:

                  Statistic                   |  Value
--------------------------------------------------------
Share of vowels                               |   0.46
Share of sonorant consonants                  |   0.19
Share of voiced obstruents                    |   0.10
Share of voiceless obstruents                 |   0.25
Ratio of consonants to vowels                 |   1.19
Share of clusters of 3 consonants or more     |   0.01
Hiatuses per word                             |   0.00
Entropy of the CV patterns of words (bits)    |   3.55
Hardness                                      |   0.39
Alliteration index                            |   0.83
Assonance index                               |   0.86
Share of open syllables                       |   0.74
Mean length of a syllable (sounds)            |   2.19

Over a whole book the indices of alliteration and assonance come near 1 for verse and prose alike, as on the books of the corpus of literature: the repetitions of a poem are local, and the places where they gather are shown by the layer alliteration of the highlighting.