Longer Words, Easier-to-pronounce Phonemes: A Pilot Study

Abstract The study investigates the relationship between word length and phoneme sonority in six languages across diverse language families. Building on the principle of least effort and the Menzerath-Altmann law, the research is aimed to analyze the phoneme sonority using translated New Testament texts in Bilua, Bola, Czech, Gagauz, Jamamadi, and Tongan. The findings reveal that in languages with complex syllables, the tendency of longer words to contain shorter syllables—consistent with the Menzerath-Altmann law— results in a higher proportion of vowels, thereby increasing the mean phoneme sonority. In contrast, languages with simple syllable structures exhibit either a decrease in mean phoneme sonority or no clear trend. Further, mean consonant sonority increases with word length in Bilua, Czech, and Gagauz, while no clear trend is observed in Bola, Jamamadi, and Tongan. Conversely, mean vowel sonority increases with word length in Bola, Jamamadi, and Tongan, but remains stable or decreases in Bilua, Czech, and Gagauz. Overall, the analysis reveals consistent patterns linking word length and sonority across all six languages.