The first question to be settled was the selection of
the speech material to be analyzed. By definition, only
samples of the spoken language could be used and not
written material. The ideal way of obtaining such
material would be to record a large variety of speech
and then use a staff of trained phoneticians to transcribe
them; i.e., to write down the phoneme sequences
recorded. In practice, such a procedure presents many
difficulties.

The first question to be settled was the selection of
the speech material to be analyzed. By definition, only
samples of the spoken language could be used and not
written material. The ideal way of obtaining such
material would be to record a large variety of speech
and then use a staff of trained phoneticians to transcribe
them; i.e., to write down the phoneme sequences
recorded. In practice, such a procedure presents many
difficulties.