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Journal of Information Science
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An analysis of Zipf-Mandelbrot language measures and their application to artificial languages

Charles T. Meadow

Faculty of Library and Information Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Jiabin Wang

Faculty of Library and Information Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Manal Stamboulie

Faculty of Library and Information Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Studies of word frequency distributions have been used in linguisties for some time and are frequently used in information socnce research for such purposes as predicting numbers of key words or computing the significance of a word by its frequency of occurrence In this paper we provide a historical review of some of the developments in a particular aspect of word frequency analysis known as Zipf's Law but in fact first explicitly formulated by E U Condon, and later modified by B Mandelbrot. We present an exploratory analy sis of the use of Mandelbrot's parameters in discriminating among languages and language usage Some suggestions are made for using these parameters to characterize artificial (command) languages or the manner of use of these languages by different groups, for the purpose of enabling a computer interface to respond to users in a manner suited to their backgrounds or skills.

Journal of Information Science, Vol. 19, No. 4, 247-257 (1993)
DOI: 10.1177/016555159301900401
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