Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
9727525 | Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications | 2005 | 6 Pages |
Abstract
Analysis of word frequency have historically used data that included English, French, or other language, data typically described by Zipf's law. Using data on traditional and modern Chinese literatures, we show here that Chinese character frequency stroked Zipf's law based on literature before Qin dynasty; however, it departed from Zipf's law based on literature after Qin dynasty. Combined with data about English dictionaries and Chinese dictionaries, we show that the true reason for Zipf's Law in language is that growth and preferential selection mechanism of word or character in given language.
Keywords
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Physical Sciences and Engineering
Mathematics
Mathematical Physics
Authors
Wang Dahui, Li Menghui, Di Zengru,