Re: Re[2]: [tied] Re: *kap-

----- Original Message -----
From: "Grzegorz Jagodzinski" <grzegorj2000@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2005 7:15 PM
Subject: Re: Re[2]: [tied] Re: *kap-


> 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?
>
> "George K. Zipf is famous for his law of abbreviations"
>
> and further:
>
> "Footnote: Not necessarily proportionate; possibly some non-linear
> mathematical function."
>
> And so, if somebody understand Zipf's law the way you describe, it means
> that his/her interpretation is incorrect.
>
> > In any case, both of these are empirical
> > descriptions, so neither can say that anything *must*
> > happen.
>
> > Brian
>
> 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. The meaning of "must" is
> the
> same in both situations (and may be different than in other instances).
>
> Grzegorz J.


***
Patrick:

The "Zipf's Law" that you are discussing is a misnomer. It should be termed
Zipf's Observation. Zipf merely noticed that longer words occur less
frequently than shorter words in a ratio _roughly_ correlated to their
lengths. To qualify as a "law", there must be some causality established.

One could speculate that human beings generally prefer the greatest possible
economy in speech production - if all _necessary_ parameters are covered.
Actually, I would agree with that. The problem is that different groups do
not agree on what is _necessary_. Try explaining to a Chinese why every
syllable of a Slavic language sentence is _necessary_.

But even if we regarded Zipf's Observation as a Law, you are turning it on
its head. I do not doubt for a nano-second that frequently used words are
often shortened (more accurately, I think, phonologically simplified) but
that has really nothing to do with Zipf's Observation. 'gonna' is marginally
shorter than 'going to' but easier to pronounce.

If Zipf is truly operative as you will have it, how can words like
Gosudarstvennie exist?

***