AbstractThe presence of the α‐methyl group in the alternating methyl methacrylate‐styrene copolymer produces a remarkable difference in its13C NMR spectra as compared with the spectra of the alternating methyl acrylate‐styrene copolymer; cotacticity‐dependent splittings occur only in the former spectrum. A theoretical interpretation was attempted for this characteristic spectral variation in terms of the calculated time‐averaged chemical shifts for carbons in the dyads constituting the alternating copolymers. Each (meso or racemic) dyad sequence is considered to exist in several conformational states which are mutually exchanging rapidly and the probabilities of which are determined by a statistical mechanical procedure. The calculation of cotacticity‐dependent chemical shifts is conducted for the side chain carbonyl, aromatic C1and methoxyl carbons as well as for some main chain carbons to give good agreement with the observed peak splittings, especially with respect to the side chain carbons. In accordance with the reported assignment, the calculated differences in shielding factors between meso and racemic dyads for the side chain carbons of poly(methyl methacrylate‐alt‐styrene) are positive, i.e. the meso or isotactic peak appears at higher field than the racemic or syndiotactic peak. Furthermore, the resulting values are relatively large (≈0,63 ppm) in conformity with the experiment. The calculation for the carbons in poly(methyl acrylate‐alt‐styrene) gives a very small shielding difference (−0,04 to 0,06 ppm) by the dyad cotacticity, being consistent with the observation, i. e. ab