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FOUR MULTIVARIATE STATISTICS FOR A TWO-WAY MANOVA OF PHONEME PROBABILITIES AS A FUNCTION OF SOURCE OF THE NAMES AND NAME LENGTH
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If authors put words together in ways that can be recognized as wordprints (Hilton, 1990; Morton, 1979; Archer et al., 1997), do they put sounds together in identifiable ways when they invent names? Could they have unique sound prints (phonoprints) as well? This exploratory study compared phonemic patterns of fictional names in the poorly written M...
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Context 1
... was tested with a two-way multivariate analysis of variance of the interactive effects of name source and name length on the ordinal position profiles of phonotactic probabilities. The results from four multivariate tests (Wilks' lambda, Pillai's trace, the Hotelling-Lawley statistic, and Roy's greatest root) are shown in Table 1 for each of the three sources of variance (name source, name length, and interaction between these two). All of these 12 multivariate tests were statistically significant, indicating that phonotactic ordinal position profiles were predictable from length, source, and the interaction of the two. ...Context 2
... univariate tests shown in Table 2 followed-up on the holistic multivariate results given in Table 1, breaking down the overall statistical significance of profile comparisons into which particular ordinal positions most accounted for significance. All three sets of multivariate tests showed statistical significance for the overall gestalt forms, the holistic patterns, and ten out of the twelve corresponding univariate tests figure 4 A comparison of the English phonemic probabilities for each word length at each ordinal position for all three name sources combined. ...Context 3
... results from four multivariate tests are shown in Table 1. The three sets of multivariate tests were each statistically significant. ...Citations
... Previous research has suggested that Tolkien had his own phonoprint -a tendency to create names using the same phonemes and syllable structures regardless of the languages from which they derived (Smemoe et al. 2014;Wilcox et al. 2013). However, these studies were conducted looking only at phonemes and syllable structures and not names as whole units. ...
... Next, we will examine Tolkien's names as whole units using the same IBM name recognition software that is used in airports. Wilcox et al. (2013) found that names made up by a single author are different from those that appear in natural language contexts. This finding is consistent with the work of Fudge and Shockey (1998) who have shown that languages differ greatly in the syllable structures permitted and in the morphophonological positioning of consonants and vowels within syllables. ...
... This finding is consistent with the work of Fudge and Shockey (1998) who have shown that languages differ greatly in the syllable structures permitted and in the morphophonological positioning of consonants and vowels within syllables. Wilcox et al. (2013) found that Tolkien's patterns were more limited and predictable than names in authentic contexts. However, one drawback of this study was that all the invented names taken from Tolkien's works were examined as a single group. ...
J. R. R. Tolkien claimed to create names based on sound symbolism and invented languages. Previous studies revealed that Tolkien had his own phonoprint (tendency to use the same phonemes repeatedly for character names) regardless of his claims that they reflected different language origins. However, this research examined phonemes and syllables rather than names as whole units. This study compared 183 names from Tolkien’s works and 100 names from the nineteenth Century US Census. The name recognition software linked names with known languages or provided a “generic” category when no match was found. Results showed no significant differences between the generic listings when language groups were compared. It seems Tolkien successfully created unique names, but could not escape his own phonoprint among the generic names. When looking at names from non-generic responses, it appears Tolkien was able to differentiate into three language groups, but not with the precision he claimed.
