Introducing a phonotactic probability calculator for Czech Cover Image

Introducing a phonotactic probability calculator for Czech
Introducing a phonotactic probability calculator for Czech

Author(s): Petra Čechová, Luca Cilibrasi, Jan Henyš, Jaroslav Čecho
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Phonetics / Phonology, Psycholinguistics
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Ústav pro jazyk český
Keywords: Czech; language processing; phonotactic probability; phonotactics; pseudoword

Summary/Abstract: Phonotactic probability refers to the frequency with which phonological segments and sequences of phonological segments occur in words in a given language (Vitevitch – Luce, 2004). It has been shown that phonotactic probabilities of words are important in language processing and language acquisition (Jusczyk et al., 1994; Mattys – Jusczyk, 2001; Pitt – McQueen, 1998). For example, words with high phonotactic probability are processed faster by native speakers in same-different tasks (Luce – Large, 2001), and pseudowords with high phonotactic probability are judged as more word-like by adults (Vitevitch et al., 1997). In this paper we present a phonotactic calculator for Czech implemented as a Python script. The script relies on frequency data from three freely available corpora of Czech: SYN2015 and SYN2020, corpora of written Czech (Křen et al., 2015; 2020), and ORAL v1, a corpus of spoken Czech (Kopřivová et al., 2017). The steps of the calculation mirror those developed by Vitevitch and Luce (2004) for English, and the script can provide phonotactic (and additionally orthotactic) probability for any Czech word or pseudoword. The script can be downloaded at <https://phonocalc.github.io>.

  • Issue Year: 106/2023
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 72-83
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: English
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