The Relationship of Word Length and Sentence Length: The Inter-Textual Perspective

The present study concentrates on the relation between sentence length (SL) and word length (WL) as a possible factor in text classification. The dependence of WL and SL is discussed in terms of general system theory and synergetics; the results achieved thus are relevant not only for linguistic studies of text classification, but for the study of other complex systems, as well. 1 Synergetics and the Menzerath-Altmann Law In a number of previous studies (Grzybek et al. 2005, Kelih et al. 2005, Anti et al. 2006, Kelih et al. 2006), the impact of word length (WL) and sentence length (SL) for purposes of text classification has been analyzed in detail. It has been shown that both factors play an important role in text classification. Based on this work, the present study focuses less on WL and SL as separate linguistic phenomena in their own right, rather than on the relation between them and implied text typological specifics. In quantitative and synergetic linguistics, the relations bet...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: GFKL
• Authors: Peter Grzybek, Ernst Stadlober, Emmerich Kelih
• Keywords: Data Mining, GFKL 2006, Sentence Length, Text Classification, Word Length