IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/acsxxx/v05y2002i01ns0219525902000468.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Zipf'S Law And Random Texts

Author

Listed:
  • RAMON FERRER i CANCHO

    (Complex Systems Research Group, FEN, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Campus Nord B4, 08034 Barcelona, Spain)

  • RICARD V. SOLÉ

    (Complex Systems Research Group, FEN, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Campus Nord B4, 08034 Barcelona, Spain;
    Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, New Mexico 87501, USA)

Abstract

Random-text models have been proposed as an explanation for the power law relationship between word frequency and rank, the so-called Zipf's law. They are generally regarded as null hypotheses rather than models in the strict sense. In this context, recent theories of language emergence and evolution assume this law asa prioriinformation with no need of explanation. Here, random texts and real texts are compared through (a) the so-called lexical spectrum and (b) the distribution of words having the same length. It is shown that real texts fill the lexical spectrum much more efficiently and regardless of the word length, suggesting that the meaningfulness of Zipf's law is high.

Suggested Citation

  • RAMON FERRER i CANCHO & RICARD V. SOLÉ, 2002. "Zipf'S Law And Random Texts," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(01), pages 1-6.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:acsxxx:v:05:y:2002:i:01:n:s0219525902000468
    DOI: 10.1142/S0219525902000468
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219525902000468
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S0219525902000468?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wsi:acsxxx:v:05:y:2002:i:01:n:s0219525902000468. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/acs/acs.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.