A Statistical Study on Chinese Word and Character Usage in Literatures from the Tang Dynasty to the Present

Chen, Qinghua; Guo, Jinzhong; Liu, Yufan

doi:10.1080/09296174.2012.685305

Cited by 10 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…However, the Zipf's law was so far found to be absent for the rank-frequency relation of Chinese characters [20][21][22][23][24][25], which play-sociologically, psychologically and (to some extent) linguistically-the same role for Chinese readers and writers as the words do in Indo-European languages [26][27][28].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rank-frequency relation for Chinese characters

Deng¹,

Allahverdyan

et al. 2014

Eur. Phys. J. B

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We show that the Zipf's law for Chinese characters perfectly holds for sufficiently short texts (few thousand different characters). The scenario of its validity is similar to the Zipf's law for words in short English texts. For long Chinese texts (or for mixtures of short Chinese texts), rank-frequency relations for Chinese characters display a two-layer, hierarchic structure that combines a Zipfian power-law regime for frequent characters (first layer) with an exponential-like regime for less frequent characters (second layer). For these two layers we provide different (though related) theoretical descriptions that include the range of low-frequency characters (hapax legomena). The comparative analysis of rank-frequency relations for Chinese characters versus English words illustrates the extent to which the characters play for Chinese writers the same role as the words for those writing within alphabetical systems.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rank-frequency relation for Chinese characters

Deng¹,

Allahverdyan

et al. 2014

Eur. Phys. J. B

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“…Specifically, the frequency distribution of Chinese tends to exhibit a larger concavity after a certain rank of unique characters (typically in thousands) is reached, whereas that of English tends to progress with a more stable slope. This rank-frequency distributional difference between the two languages has been verified by recent empirical studies such as Chen et al (2012). How this difference will affect the entropic process of English homogeneous texts and whether the pattern uncovered in the current study will equally hold for the counterpart in English will be a worthwhile future direction.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Entropic evolution of lexical richness of homogeneous texts over time: A dynamic complexity perspective

Zhang

2016

JLM

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This work concerns the evolving pattern of the lexical richness of the corpus text of China Government Work Report measured by entropy, based on a fundamental assumption that these texts are linguistically homogeneous. The corpus is interpreted and studied as a dynamic system, the components of which maintain spontaneous variations, adjustment, self-organizations, and adaptations to fit into the semantic, discourse and sociolinguistic functions that the text is set to perform. Both the macroscopic structural trend and the microscopic fluctuations of the time series of the interested entropic process are meticulously investigated from the dynamic complexity theoretical perspective. Rigorous nonlinear regression analysis is provided throughout the study for empirical justifications to the theoretical postulations. An overall concave model with modulated fluctuations incorporated is proposed and statistically tested to represent the key quantitative findings. Possible extensions of the current study are discussed.

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“…Chinese-related studies at this time are almost the total sum of the previous four periods 13 . Studies cover estimation of Chinese word frequencies (Qiao et al, 2010), assessment of Chinese characters' similarity and degree of perplexity (Zhang, 2011), analysis of the syllable-to-character mapping spectrum with tones (Li, 2013); probability distribution of discourse relations of modern Chinese news commentaries with rhetoricalstructure-theory annotations (Yue & Liu, 2011); and statistical study of Chinese word and character usage in literatures from the Tang Dynasty to the present (Chen et al, 2012). Vocabulary richness is one of the oldest and most traditional fields in QL.…”

Section: Quantitative Aspects Of Jqlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative Aspects ofJournal of Quantitative Linguistics

Chen

Liu²

2014

Journal of Quantitative Linguistics

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As one of the most authoritative journals in the field of quantitative linguistics, the Journal of Quantitative Linguistics has just passed its 20th birthday. In this paper, we collect information from the 20 volumes of this journal published so far (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013) to build a corpus, then extract different categories of information using corpus tools. By quantitative analysis of the corpus data, complemented with information extracted from abstract and citation index databases such as Scopus and Web of Knowledge as important references, we aim to explore the objects, aims and methodologies of quantitative linguistics, its focuses and shifts in different periods, representative achievements in the past 20 years, and possible directions for the future. During the process, the role of JQL both in the development of quantitative linguistics and the wider scientific community are located and evaluated with quantitative-based evidence. The findings are that JQL contributes greatly to the development of quantitative linguistics and is in many aspects representative of changes in this field, keeping close pace with trends in the discipline and the ever-evolving characteristics of quantitative linguistics over the years.

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A Statistical Study on Chinese Word and Character Usage in Literatures from the Tang Dynasty to the Present

Cited by 10 publications

References 13 publications

Rank-frequency relation for Chinese characters

Rank-frequency relation for Chinese characters

Entropic evolution of lexical richness of homogeneous texts over time: A dynamic complexity perspective

Quantitative Aspects ofJournal of Quantitative Linguistics

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