What Makes Our Tongues Twist?: Computational Analysis of Croatian Tongue-Twisters

Croatian tongue-twisters are defined by the lack of euphony, and the abundance of sound patterns that lead to speech errors. The major feature that contributes to this anti-euphonious patterning is the significant presence of consonant clusters in the syllable onset. This research combines a phonostylistic approach, computational analysis, and statistical methods in order to detect and differentiate sound patterning and its effect on euphony in tongue-twisters. The paper presents the results from research that focuses on the computational analysis of these features and their comparison with other similar folklore genres (counting-out rhymes, lyric and epic poetry, proverbs, and narratives).