labels as words

[Emma May Smith]

There are some interesting stats, Marco, and I've certainly never seen labelese so clearly described. Researchers often talk about how it differs and so it's good to see the numbers.

I'll add my thoughts, which may duplicate some of yours.

Word starts:

[qo]: it's no surprise to see this at lower levels, as this is the classic mark of labelese.
[ch, sh]: the lower levels of these two is interesting, as I can think of two different kinds of word which begin [ch, sh]. Some are short, like [chy] and [sheo], others are long with a gallows, such as [chckhy] and [chety]. I would guess it's the former which is changing the numbers and they're more common. But if so, what do these short words mean? Are they not in the labels because they're grammatical?
[ot, ok]: the increase in these should be a result of the lower [qo]. I note that for all labels the levels are similar and increase similarly, though for the small plants labels [ot] start much lower and grow much further.
[yt, yk, sa, so]: this is the biggest surprise! These are line start patterns, so to see them here is interesting. This is a link between labels and line patterns, though it's hard to see immediately how.

Word ends:
[in]: I seem to recalls discussing with you the possibility that [in] was a line pattern. We couldn't come to an agreement because the evidence was weak, I think. But there's the further fact that multisyllable words tend not to end with [in].
[ey]: I admit to not knowing what the lower levels of [ey] could mean, except that longer words also don't end with [ey].
[ly, ry]: it might seem that these endings account for the lower [ol, or] by the addition of [y], but I think more of these are [aly, ary].