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arXiv · 0802.4215

Equilibrium (Zipf) and Dynamic (Grasseberg-Procaccia) method based analyses of human texts. A comparison of natural (english) and artificial (esperanto) languages

M. Ausloos
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Abstract

A comparison of two english texts from Lewis Carroll, one (Alice in wonderland), also translated into esperanto, the other (Through a looking glass) are discussed in order to observe whether natural and artificial languages significantly differ from each other. One dimensional time series like signals are constructed using only word frequencies (FTS) or word lengths (LTS). The data is studied through (i) a Zipf method for sorting out correlations in the FTS and (ii) a Grassberger-Procaccia (GP) technique based method for finding correlations in LTS. Features are compared : different power laws are observed with characteristic exponents for the ranking properties, and the {\it phase space attractor dimensionality}. The Zipf exponent can take values much less than unity ($ca.$ 0.50 or 0.30) depending on how a sentence is defined. This non-universality is conjectured to be a measure of the author $style$. Moreover the attractor dimension $r$ is a simple function of the so called phase space dimension $n$, i.e., $r = n^λ$, with $λ= 0.79$. Such an exponent should also conjecture to be a measure of the author $creativity$. However, even though there are quantitative differences between the original english text and its esperanto translation, the qualitative differences are very minutes, indicating in this case a translation relatively well respecting, along our analysis lines, the content of the author writing.

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M. Ausloos. 2008-02-28. Equilibrium (Zipf) and Dynamic (Grasseberg-Procaccia) method based analyses of human texts. A comparison of natural (english) and artificial (esperanto) languages. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2008.07.016

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