The Relationship between Word Length and Frequency in Indian Languages

Jayaram, Bijapur D.; Vidya, Matummal N.

doi:10.1515/glot-2009-0021

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Zipf's law of abbreviation, the tendency of more frequent words to be shorter [1], holds in every language for which it was tested [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9] (Fig. 1 (a)), suggesting that language universals are not necessarily a myth [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compression and the origins of Zipf's law for word frequencies

Ferrer-i-Cancho

2016

Complexity

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Here we sketch a new derivation of Zipf's law for word frequencies based on optimal coding. The structure of the derivation is reminiscent of Mandelbrot's random typing model but it has multiple advantages over random typing: (1) it starts from realistic cognitive pressures, (2) it does not require fine tuning of parameters, and (3) it sheds light on the origins of other statistical laws of language and thus can lead to a compact theory of linguistic laws. Our findings suggest that the recurrence of Zipf's law in human languages could originate from pressure for easy and fast communication.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compression and the origins of Zipf's law for word frequencies

Ferrer-i-Cancho

2016

Complexity

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“…assigning smaller lengths to more frequently used words, that has been studied with mathematical rigor in information theory (Cover & Thomas, 2006). The law of brevity has been reported for many languages (e.g., Zipf, 1949;Straus et al, 2007;Jayaram & Vidya, 2009). Recently, parallels of the law of brevity have been investigated in the behavior of other species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For some quantitative linguistics researchers, another important problem, namely the fit of a particular function, e.g., d  f b where b is a constant, would need to be addressed as is customary in quantitative linguistics research (e.g., Jayaram & Vidya, 2009). Firstly, it should be noted that we want to stay neutral on the issue of the most appropriate function for human language or animal behavior in general in the present article.…”

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The Law of Brevity in Macaque Vocal Communication is not an Artefact of Analysing Mean Call Durations^∗

Semple

Hsu

Agoramoorthy

et al. 2013

Journal of Quantitative Linguistics

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Words follow the law of brevity, i.e. more frequent words tend to be shorter. From a statistical point of view, this qualitative definition of the law states that word length and word frequency are negatively correlated. Here the recent finding of patterning consistent with the law of brevity in Formosan macaque vocal communication (Semple et al., 2010) is revisited. It is shown that the negative correlation between mean duration and frequency of use in the vocalizations of Formosan macaques is not an artifact of the use of a mean duration for each call type instead of the customary 'word' length of studies of the law in human language. The key point demonstrated is that the total duration of calls of a particular type increases with the number of calls of that type.The finding of the law of brevity in the vocalizations of these macaques therefore defies a trivial explanation.

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The Relationship between Word Length and Frequency in Indian Languages

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Compression and the origins of Zipf's law for word frequencies

Compression and the origins of Zipf's law for word frequencies

The Law of Brevity in Macaque Vocal Communication is not an Artefact of Analysing Mean Call Durations^∗

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The Relationship between Word Length and Frequency in Indian Languages

Cited by 2 publications

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Compression and the origins of Zipf's law for word frequencies

Compression and the origins of Zipf's law for word frequencies

The Law of Brevity in Macaque Vocal Communication is not an Artefact of Analysing Mean Call Durations∗

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The Law of Brevity in Macaque Vocal Communication is not an Artefact of Analysing Mean Call Durations^∗