Books in the Quantitative Linguistics [QL] series

This is the first book which brings together the fields of theoretical and empirical studies in syntax on the one hand and the methodology of quantitative linguistics on the other hand. The author provides the theoretical background for this enterprise on the basis of the philosophy of science and of linguistic considerations including a discussion of Chomsky's attitude against the application of statistical methods to syntactic phenomena. He gives a short introduction into the aims and methods of the quantitative approach to linguistics in general and to syntax in particular. The following chapters inform the reader about the measurement of syntactic properties, possibilities to acquire empirical data from syntactically annotated text corpora and the most common mathematical models and methods for the analysis of syntactic and syntagmatic material. Then, a number of prominent approaches and hypotheses about interrelations between properties of syntactic constructions are presented and evaluated on material from various languages and text kinds. Finally, the theory of synergetic linguistics and its application to syntax is introduced including the integration of such famous hypotheses as Yngve's depth hypothesis and Hawkins's "e;Early immediate constituent"e; principle. The book concludes with a number of perspectives with respect to follow-up studies and extensions to the presented models with interfaces to neighbouring disciplines.

Presents 12 papers on an approach to the analysis of writing systems. This volume introduces quantitative methods into this area of research. It gives an overview about quantitative properties of symbols and of writing systems, introduces methods of analysis, and studies individual writing systems as used for different languages.

The collection contains more than 60 original papers and reflects current research topics in linguistics and text analysis. The volume is a valuable source of information about the current state-of-the-art in quantitative linguistic research, presented by renowned representatives of the field.

The present book finds and collects absolutely new aspects of word frequency. First, eminent characteristics (such as the h-point, first used in scientometrics, the k-, m-, and n-points) are introduced - it can be shown that the geometry of word frequency is fundamentally based on them. Furthermore, various indicators of text properties are proposed for the first time, such as thematic concentration, autosemantic text compactness, autosemantic density, etc. In detail, the autosemantic structure of a given text is evaluated by means of a graph representation and its properties (according to a problem from network research). Special emphasis is given to the part-of-speech differentiation, which plays a significant role in stylistics. On the basis of a general theory, which has been developed especially for linguistic research, problems of the frequency structure of texts with respect to word occurrence are investigated and discussed in detail. Methodologically, specific reference is made to synergetic linguistics, including some exemplary analyses, showing that there are points of contact with this field. A separate chapter is dedicated to within-sentence word position; this issue considers grammar as well as language genesis; another chapter is dedicated to the type-token ratio, discussing all established methods and their relevance for word frequency analysis. All methods presented in the book are statistically tested; to this end, some new tests have been developed. All procedures and calculations are conducted for 20 languages, ranging from Polynesia, Indonesia, India, and Europe to a North American Indian language. The broad distribution of the data and texts from all genres allows generalizations with respect to language typology.

The standard scientific methodology in linguistics is empirical testing of falsifiable hypotheses. As such the process of hypothesis generation is central, and involves formulation of a research question about a domain of interest and statement of a hypothesis relative to it. In corpus linguistics the domain is text, and generation involves abstraction of data from text, data analysis, and formulation of a hypothesis based on inference from the results. Traditionally this process has been paper-based, but the advent of electronic text has increasingly rendered it obsolete both because the size of digital corpora is now at or beyond the limit of what can efficiently be used in the traditional way, and because the complexity of data abstracted from them can be impenetrable to understanding. Linguists are increasingly turning to mathematical and statistical computational methods for help, and cluster analysis is such a method. It is used across the sciences for hypothesis generation by identification of structure in data which are too large or complex, or both, to be interpretable by direct inspection. This book aims to show how cluster analysis can be used for hypothesis generation in corpus linguistics, thereby contributing to a quantitative empirical methodology for the discipline.

The book presents methods for the objective analysis of poetic language. Common objects of literary studies such as rhythm, semantic explications, interpretation and personal impressions are avoided. Only those properties of poetic texts are taken into account that could be quantified. The major chapters contain the analysis of phonic phenomena (frequency, euphony, assonance, alliteration, aggregation, rhyme), word properties (aspects of frequency, length, richness, word classes, sequences of word properties, characterisations). The synergetic control cycle is the result of the study of mutual links between properties. For all methods both statistical tests (evaluation, comparison), theoretical derivations (models), and examples are presented. The book is dedicated to the work of the famous Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu whose complete work was analysed, which made detailed illustrations of the method possible. The methods can be used mutatis mutandis for any language and text. It is the first comprehensive quantitative analysis of a poetic work.

The present volume presents objective methods to detect and analyse various forms of repetitions. Repetition of textual elements is more than a superficial phenomenon. It may even be considered as constitutive for units and relations in a text: on a primary level when no other way exists to establish a unit - as in a musical composition (a motif can be recognised as such only after at least one repetition) - and on a secondary, artistic level, where repetition is a consequence of the transfer of the equivalence principle from the paradigmatic axis to the syntagmatic one as showed by R. Jakobson.The analysis of repetitive elements and structures in texts with objective mathematical means can serve several practical and theoretical purposes, among them:Characterisation of texts by means of parameters (measures, indicators) as taken from established mathematical statistics or specifically constructed ones in individual cases.Comparison of texts on the basis of their quantitative characteristics and classification of the texts by the results.Research for the laws of text, which control the mechanisms connected to text creation. As a remote aim, the construction of a theory of text consisting of a system of text laws. The final attempt of every possible quantitative text analysis is the construction of a text theory. The book illustrates this on examples of such laws and corresponding empirical tests.