Quantitative Genre Analysis Using Linguistic Motifs
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Yaqin Wang
Abstract
Linguistic motif is the longest continuous sequence of equal or increasing values representing a quantitative property of a linguistic unit. The present study makes an attempt towards a quantitative investigation on characteristics of different genres by using the notion of linguistic motif, i.e., L-, F-motifs. The rank frequency distributions of L-, F-motifs across genres were modeled by Zipf-Mandelbrot distribution. Parameters of Zipf-Mandelbrot model and certain attributes related to motifs were compared. Results show that parameters of Zipf-Mandelbrot model and the proportion of hapax legomena of the F-motifs to size of the F-motif tokens can separate several genres from others. It reveals that both L- and F-motifs can be employed as indicators for genre classification.
Abstract
Linguistic motif is the longest continuous sequence of equal or increasing values representing a quantitative property of a linguistic unit. The present study makes an attempt towards a quantitative investigation on characteristics of different genres by using the notion of linguistic motif, i.e., L-, F-motifs. The rank frequency distributions of L-, F-motifs across genres were modeled by Zipf-Mandelbrot distribution. Parameters of Zipf-Mandelbrot model and certain attributes related to motifs were compared. Results show that parameters of Zipf-Mandelbrot model and the proportion of hapax legomena of the F-motifs to size of the F-motif tokens can separate several genres from others. It reveals that both L- and F-motifs can be employed as indicators for genre classification.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Foreword V
- Table of Contents VII
- Persistency of Higher Order Motifs 1
- On Motifs and Verb Valency 13
- Chinese Word Length Motif and Its Evolution 37
- Quantitative Text Classification Based on POS-motifs 65
- L-motif TTR for Authorship Identification in Hongloumeng and Its Translation 87
- Length Motifs of Words in Traditional and Simplified Chinese Scripts 109
- Dependency Distance Motifs in 21 Indo- European Languages 133
- Word Length Distribution and Text Length: Two Important Factors Influencing Properties of Word Length Motifs 151
- Quantitative Genre Analysis Using Linguistic Motifs 165
- The Rank-frequency Distribution of Part-of-speech Motif and Dependency Motif in the Deaf Learners’ Compositions 181
- Quantitative Properties of Polysemy Motifs in Chinese and English 201
- The Words and F-motifs in the Modern Chinese Versions of the Gospel of Mark 217
- Motifs of Generalized Valencies 231
- Index of Names 261
- Subject Index 267
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Foreword V
- Table of Contents VII
- Persistency of Higher Order Motifs 1
- On Motifs and Verb Valency 13
- Chinese Word Length Motif and Its Evolution 37
- Quantitative Text Classification Based on POS-motifs 65
- L-motif TTR for Authorship Identification in Hongloumeng and Its Translation 87
- Length Motifs of Words in Traditional and Simplified Chinese Scripts 109
- Dependency Distance Motifs in 21 Indo- European Languages 133
- Word Length Distribution and Text Length: Two Important Factors Influencing Properties of Word Length Motifs 151
- Quantitative Genre Analysis Using Linguistic Motifs 165
- The Rank-frequency Distribution of Part-of-speech Motif and Dependency Motif in the Deaf Learners’ Compositions 181
- Quantitative Properties of Polysemy Motifs in Chinese and English 201
- The Words and F-motifs in the Modern Chinese Versions of the Gospel of Mark 217
- Motifs of Generalized Valencies 231
- Index of Names 261
- Subject Index 267
