Re[4]: [tied] Re: *kap-

At 8:15:17 PM on Saturday, October 1, 2005, Grzegorz
Jagodzinski wrote:

> Brian M. Scott wrote:

>> At 5:03:36 PM on Friday, September 30, 2005, Grzegorz
>> Jagodzinski wrote:

>>> The Zipf's law says that long words must be shortened
>>> (irregularily) if they are used with enough frequency.

>> 'Zipf's law' normally refers to Zipf's empirical observation
>> that the frequency of the n-th most common word in a text is
>> proportional to 1/n,

> Really?

Yes. Google on <"zipf's law"> and look at the sites listed
on the first page of returns. You will find that I am
right, and that there is a very considerable literature on
the subject, as well as a number of generalizations (e.g.,
the Zipf-Mandelbrot law).

> "George K. Zipf is famous for his law of abbreviations"

He is best known for Zipf's Law, which is as I stated it
above.

> and further:

> "Footnote: Not necessarily proportionate; possibly some
> non-linear mathematical function."

Yes, I've read that. It refers to what I mentioned and you
snipped: 'his observation that "the length of a word tends
to bear an inverse relationship to its relative frequency",
which I suppose is what you have in mind here'. He never
suggested any specific mathematical relationship between
word-length and frequency, and a fortiori proposed no law
relating the two: 'tends to bear an inverse relationship to'
is far to vague to be called a law even if the term 'Zipf's
Law' weren't already in general use for something else.

> And so, if somebody understand Zipf's law the way you
> describe, it means that his/her interpretation is
> incorrect.

No, it doesn't. It means that unlike you, he knows what
Zipf's Law is.

>> In any case, both of these are empirical
>> descriptions, so neither can say that anything *must*
>> happen.

> All laws are descriptive, contrary to theories whose aim
> is to answer the question "why". However, laws also
> *require* things to happen so-and-so, in order to satisfy
> what the laws say. As Newton's law requires apples to fall
> onto the ground, so Zipf's law requires frequent words to
> be shortened (if they are too long). Both things *must*
> happen.

Don't be ridiculous. 'The length of a word tends to bear an
inverse relationship to its relative frequency' doesn't
require anything of any specific word; it's a vague,
qualitative description of a lexicon.

Brian