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In " Analysis of prosodic timing in reading " (4/5/2026), I suggested that inter-word timings in fluent reading can give a surprisingly clear picture of prosodic phrasing, despite the many other effects on word durations in speech.

That post looked at data from the Speech Accent Archive , which involves reading a short and somewhat weird passage. Since then, I've explored readings of a variety of other texts, so far only in English. The results continue to look promising.

For today, I'll show a small additional result, from seven readings of Jane Austen's novel Emma :

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

Six of the readings are from LibriVox, and one is a professional audiobook version.

Here's a plot of median durations for the 40 "words" in the first sentence.…