True reason for Zipf's law in language

Wang Dahui, Li Menghui and Di Zengru

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2005, vol. 358, issue 2, 545-550

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: Zipf's law; Language; Mechanism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:358:y:2005:i:2:p:545-550

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2005.04.021

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