Acoustic Phonetic Transcription of Written English

The function that maps the words of written English onto the corresponding words of spoken English is described. The simplest hypothesis is that this function F, defined on the symbols forming the letters of the alphabet, maps each letter onto a sound, and maps the sequence of letters L1L2 as F(L1L2) = F(L1)F(L2). This hypothesis is false, since F is not always well‐defined in the sense that its values are not always unique and the equation does not always persist. On the basis of an exhaustive dictionary search, we have shown that: it is possible to define F in a context‐dependent manner such that its restriction to consonant strings is uniquely defined; with this new definition, the equation holds for consonant strings of the gramatically homogeneous one‐vowel string words of written English; the consonant strings in these words coincide with those uninfluenced by the rules of euphonic combination. [B. V. Bhimani, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 35, 1912 (A) (1963); J. L. Dolby and H. L. Resnikoff, Language 40, No....