Word-Level Analysis of Polysyllables (WAP)
The Word-Level Analysis of Polysyllables (WAP) examines productions of polysyllabic words and reports word, syllable, and segmental patterns.
WAP was developed by Masso (2016) and originally published as a supplementary appendix to Masso, McLeod, Baker, and McCormack (2016). The manual analysis used seven error categories: substitutions, deletions, distortions, additions, phonotactic alterations, timing alterations, and assimilation or sequence alterations. The Phon analysis refines these categories and calculates them from aligned IPA Target and IPA Actual productions.
Before you begin
Check the syllabification and phone alignment for each record you want to analyze. Assign a speaker to each record so that its results are included in the correct participant section.
The analysis opens at Query: Data Tiers. Its default query:
- searches the Orthography tier by Word using the regular expression
.+; - uses IPA Target as the aligned word tier; and
- selects aligned IPA Target words with the Phonex expression
σσ+, meaning words with two or more syllables.
The query returns Orthography, IPA Target, IPA Actual, Alignment, Target Syllabification, and Actual Syllabification data. You may narrow the expression or the selected sessions and participants before running the analysis.
Report organization
The report begins with results for all participants, then repeats the seven
summary tables for each participant and session. Within each session, a
section named Orthography /IPA Target/ ↔ /IPA Actual/ provides four detailed
tables for every matched production.
The seven summary tables are:
| Table | Contents |
|---|---|
| Word Level Stress Inventory | Counts of each whole-word target-to-actual stress-pattern pairing. |
| Word Level Accuracy | Correct, incorrect, and percentage-correct values for five whole-word measures. |
| Prosodic Level Stress Inventory | Counts of target-to-actual stress pairings for individual syllables. |
| Prosodic Level CGV Inventory | Counts of target-to-actual consonant-glide-vowel (CGV) shape pairings for individual syllables. |
| Prosodic Level Breakdown | Stress, syllable-structure, and CGV results by stress and position in the word. |
| Segmental Level Inventory | Counts of aligned target-to-actual phone pairings, including deletions and epentheses. |
| Segmental Level Breakdown | Phone accuracy, error types, and segmental relations by syllable constituent. |
Word-level results
The Word Level Accuracy table reports Correct, Incorrect, and % Correct for these measures:
- Word — whether the complete IPA Actual equals the IPA Target.
- # Syllables — whether target and actual have the same syllable count.
- Stress — whether the complete target and actual stress patterns match.
- CGV Shape — whether the CGV shapes match, including stress, syllable boundaries, and length.
- # Transitions — whether the number of syllable transitions matches. A word has one fewer transition than syllables.
The per-production Word Level table shows the target value, actual value,
and match result for those measures. It also includes Segregated
Transitions, which counts intra-word pauses (\p). The expected target
count is zero.
Prosodic-level results
The Prosodic Level Breakdown divides results between unstressed
(Un'Str) and stressed (Str) syllables and among initial, medial, and final
word positions. Totals and percentages are included for these ten dimensions:
- Stress correct and Stress incorrect;
- Full syllable addition and Full syllable deletion;
- Syllable expansion (O) and Syllable expansion (C), where material is added to the onset or coda;
- Syllable reduction (O) and Syllable reduction (C), where material is removed from the onset or coda; and
- CGV shape correct and CGV shape incorrect.
The per-production Prosodic Level table identifies each row as Stress or CGV Pattern and displays its IPA Target, IPA Actual, word position, and description. Descriptions include Correct, Incorrect, Full syllable addition, Full syllable deletion, Syllable expansion, and Syllable reduction.
Segmental-level results
The Segmental Level Breakdown reports values for Onset, Nucleus, Coda, Total Consonants (O+C), and Total Phones. Its rows are:
- # Target, # Correct, # Substitutions, # Deletions, # Distortions, and # Epenthesis;
- the segmental relations # Migration, # Reduplication, # Metathesis, # Harmony, and # Assimilation; and
- % Correct.
In the per-production Segmental Level table, each aligned target and actual
phone is assigned to its ONSET, NUCLEUS, or CODA position and
described as Correct, Substitution, Distortion, Deletion, or Epenthesis. The
empty-set symbol (∅) marks a missing target or actual phone. A detected
segmental relation is appended to the description.
The separate Segmental Relations table supplies details about each detected relation. Its columns report the relation, type, direction, locality, affected phonological dimensions, and corresponding features. The table is empty when the production has no detected relations.
Citations
- Masso, S. (2016). Word-Level Analysis of Polysyllables. Sydney, Australia: Author.
- Masso, S., McLeod, S., Baker, E., & McCormack, J. (2016). Polysyllable productions in preschool children with speech sound disorders: Error categories and the Framework of Polysyllable Maturity. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18(3), 272–287. https://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2016.1168483