User:Jillchaffee/sandbox

Phonemes
Based on the MIT confusion matrix of 1620 single phoneme errors, the phoneme with the greatest margin of speech error is l [l] mistaken for r [r]. Other phonemes that had a high level of speech error include s [s] mistaken for ʃ [sh], f [f] for p [p], l [l] for r [r] and r [r] for l [l], w [w] for r [r], and many more. These phonemes are most likely to transform to a similar phoneme when placed in near vicinity of other phoneme. Most of these mix-ups can be attributed to the two phonemes having similar areas of articulation in the mouth.

Pronunciation difficulty is also theorized to have an effect on tongue twisters. For example, t [t] is thought to be easier to pronounce than tʃ [ch]. As a result, speakers may naturally transform tʃ [ch] to t [t] or when trying to pronounce certain tongue twisters.

Fortis and Lenis
Fortis and Lenis are the classification of strong and weak consonants.

Some characteristics of strong consonants include :


 * high frequency in a language


 * earlier development in language acquisition
 * lower placement on the phonological hierarchy

It is common for more difficult sounds to be replaced with strong consonants in tongue-twisters. This is partially determinant of which sounds are most likely to transform to other sounds with linguistic confusion.