Related papers: Universal versus system-specific features of punct…
Based on data from a large-scale experiment with human subjects, we conclude that the logarithm of probability to guess a word in context (unpredictability) depends linearly on the word length. This result holds both for poetry and prose,…
We use the formulation of equilibrium statistical mechanics in order to study some important characteristics of language. Using a simple expression for the Hamiltonian of a language system, which is directly implied by the Zipf law, we are…
In this work we analyze statistical properties of 91 relatively small texts in 7 different languages (Spanish, English, French, German, Turkish, Russian, Icelandic) as well as texts with randomly inserted spaces. Despite the size (around…
Scattered factor (circular) universality was firstly introduced by Barker et al. in 2020. A word $w$ is called $k$-universal for some natural number $k$, if every word of length $k$ of $w$'s alphabet occurs as a scattered factor in $w$; it…
Literacy, or the ability to read and write, is a crucial indicator of success in life and greater society. It is estimated that 85% of people in juvenile delinquent systems cannot adequately read or write, that more than half of those with…
Which statistical features distinguish a meaningful text (possibly written in an unknown system) from a meaningless set of symbols? Here we answer this question by comparing features of the first half of a text to its second half. This…
Words are fundamental linguistic units that connect thoughts and things through meaning. However, words do not appear independently in a text sequence. The existence of syntactic rules induces correlations among neighboring words. Using an…
Speech is a distinctive complex feature of human capabilities. In order to understand the physics underlying speech production, in this work we empirically analyse the statistics of large human speech datasets ranging several languages. We…
In this article, we present a fresh perspective on language, combining ideas from various sources, but mixed in a new synthesis. As in the minimalist program, the question is whether we can formulate an elegant formalism, a universal…
Natural language exhibits various universal properties. But why do these universals exist? One explanation is that they arise from functional pressures to achieve efficient communication, a view which attributes cross-linguistic properties…
Word segmentation is a low-level NLP task that is non-trivial for a considerable number of languages. In this paper, we present a sequence tagging framework and apply it to word segmentation for a wide range of languages with different…
Psycholinguistic studies of human word processing and lexical access provide ample evidence of the preferred nature of word-initial versus word-final segments, e.g., in terms of attention paid by listeners (greater) or the likelihood of…
Central banks around the world play a crucial role in maintaining economic stability. Deciphering policy implications in their communications is essential, especially as misinterpretations can disproportionately impact vulnerable…
Humans express ideas, beliefs, and statements through language. The manner of expression can carry information indicating the author's degree of confidence in their statement. Understanding the certainty level of a claim is crucial in areas…
Sentence formation is a highly structured, history-dependent, and sample-space reducing (SSR) process. While the first word in a sentence can be chosen from the entire vocabulary, typically, the freedom of choosing subsequent words gets…
Over the last million years, human language has emerged and evolved as a fundamental instrument of social communication and semiotic representation. People use language in part to convey emotional information, leading to the central and…
In this paper, we describe an approach to sentence categorization which has the originality to be based on natural properties of languages with no training set dependency. The implementation is fast, small, robust and textual errors…
Languages vary widely in how meanings map to word forms. These mappings have been found to support efficient communication; however, this theory does not account for systematic relations within word forms. We examine how a restricted set of…
One of the ultimate goals for linguists is to find universal properties in human languages. Although words are generally considered as representing arbitrary mapping between linguistic forms and meanings, we propose a new universal law that…
Objective criteria for universal semantic components that distinguish a humorous utterance from a non-humorous one are presently under debate. In this article, we give an in-depth observation of our system of self-paced reading for…