“A Cross-Language Perspective On Speech Information Rate”, 2011-09 (; backlinks; similar):
This article is a cross-linguistic investigation of the hypothesis that the average information rate conveyed during speech communication results from a trade-off between average information density and speech rate.
The study, based on 7 languages, shows a negative correlation between density and rate, indicating the existence of several encoding strategies. However, these strategies do not necessarily lead to a constant information rate.
These results are further investigated in relation to the notion of syllabic complexity.