Zipf's Law and Avoidance of Excessive Synonymy

Autor/in	Manin, Dmitrii Y.
Titel	Zipf's Law and Avoidance of Excessive Synonymy
Quelle	In: Cognitive Science, 32 (2008) 7, S.1075-1098 (24 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0364-0213
Schlagwörter	Semantics; Word Frequency; Russian; Classification; Vertical Organization; Models; Mathematical Linguistics + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Semantik; Word analysis; Frequency; Wortanalyse; Häufigkeit; Russisch; Classification system; Klassifikation; Klassifikationssystem; Analogiemodell; Mathematische Linguistik; Mathematische Sprache
Abstract	Zipf's law states that if words of language are ranked in the order of decreasing frequency in texts, the frequency of a word is inversely proportional to its rank. It is very reliably observed in the data, but to date it escaped satisfactory theoretical explanation. This article suggests that Zipf's law may result from a hierarchical organization of word meanings over the semantic space, which in turn is generated by the evolution of word semantics dominated by expansion of meanings and competition of synonyms. A study of the frequency of partial synonyms in Russian provides experimental evidence for the hypothesis that word frequency is determined by semantics. (Contains 6 figures, 2 tables, and 14 notes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10