Volume 2, Issue 1

The article is aimed at finding out formal features, differentiating the style of Fedor Tutchev, famous Russian poet of the middle of the 19 th century, at different stages of his creative life. 4-feet iambic lyrics is analysed in the space of parts-of-speech and word-length (syllables) characteristics. The use of multivariate discriminant analysis makes it possible to establish characteristics, possessing discriminant power. Different approaches to the periodization are tested. The correctness of the classification of the verse texts using the obtained discriminant model is rather high (98%).

This article assessed the possible suitability of an English word frequency counter for Persian. Ten Persian articles related to agriculture were input to the software. The error analysis revealed that it had the potential to be used for Persian but modifications were necessary to reduce the errors. The main source of the errors lied in Persian morphology and alphabet and the availability of Persian and Arabic fonts, which permitted writers to introduce unsystematic variations in their writings. It was suggested that the Persian text be handled with all its inconsistencies through algorithms that would merge variations before the frequency count in run, or through deleting illegal spaces and converting them into full spaces and then using a closed list of bound morphemes to join the elements of multi unit words together.

This study is an extension of previous research on so-called “low-level” linguistic units in general, and on Slovak letter and grapheme frequencies in particular. Specifically, the ranking behavior of Slovak letters and graphemes is compared to the organization of allophones, submitting identical linguistic data to analyses on all three levels. As a result, it can be shown that all three kinds of units share some common features as to their frequency organization; still, there seem to be substantial differences. As to common traits, it is shown that the frequency of Slovak letters, graphemes and allophones can be modeled by the negative hypergeometric distribution; furthermore, there is a linear relation between parameters K and M of this model, previously observed and interpreted in more detail for other Slavic languages. However, as opposed to previous results obtained, parameter K does not seem to depend on inventory size only; also, whereas there is no significant difference of (relative) entropy between LG frequencies, the difference is significant between both and allophones, (relative) entropy being less for A frequencies as compared to the LG frequencies. These findings can be interpreted in terms of a more uniform exploitation of allophones as compared to that of letters or graphemes, indicating a relative under-exploitation and/or overexploitation of LG units as compared to the allophone inventory. Perspectives for further research are outlined.

The present study tries to find out the factors that influence the choice of language in bilinguals. It also looks into the contexts where college students code mix and their attitude towards mixing English in Tamil. This study also investigates the reasons behind college students’ mixing of two codes. The questionnaire designed gave insight into language choice and language use of the students in different contexts. Analysis shows that exposure to English plays a vital role in aiding code mixing. The findings show that students mix English with Tamil in varying degree based on the topic of discussion, addressee or the interlocutor and the nature of activity

The paper provides a discussion of the relationship between inventory size of phoneme systems and the number of biphoneme sequences. Statistical models, proposed in the past, are reanalyzed and a new model is developed. The empirical basis for the mentioned relationships consists of 79 genetically non related languages.

The dependence of the number of synonyms of the German noun upon its semantic, stylistic, morphological status, number of meanings and frequency of usage has been analyzed by means of statistical methods.

During years, a number of tentative decipherments have been proposed in regard to the clustering symbols that form the assumed rongorongo script of Easter Island. The legitimacy of the claims, despite their originality, boldness and/or strangeness, remains largely untested due to a major disadvantage: the physical material that comprises the rongorongo script is scarce and restricted. In a similar fashion, the RR corpus problem overlaps a number of non-deciphered scripts’ corpora that have the same disadvantage, such as the pseudo-hieroglyphs of Byblos, the Isthmian script of Mesoamerica, the Olmec hieroglyphs, and the symbols of the Cretan Phaistos disc. Engagement with corpus linguistics literature is deemed vital in focusing on the current situation of RR, and also in how to plausibly surmount the perceived difficulties. Careful considerations based on a theoretical and practical framework show that a new transliteration system agreed by consensus needs to be implemented. Structural and statistical analysis, comparisons and annotations should be made in all the body of non-skewed and skewed texts to validate any working hypothesis, while opting for and confirming the right model for data analysis under unfavorable circumstances.