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Journal of Physical Studies 11(1), 22–33 (2007)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.30970/jps.11.022 FOX MYKYTA AND NETWORKS OF LANGUAGEYu. Holovatch{1,2}, V. Palchykov{1}
1 Insitute for Condensed Matter Physics, National Academy of
Sciences of Ukraine, 79011 Lviv, Ukraine |
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The results of quantitative analysis of word distribution in two fables in Ukrainian by Ivan Franko: "Fox Mykyta" and "Abu-Kasym's Slippers" are reported. Our study consists of two parts: the analysis of frequency-rank distributions and the application of complex networks theory. The analysis of frequency-rank distributions shows that the text sizes are sufficient to observe statistical properties. The power-law character of these distributions (Zipf's law) holds in the region of rank variable $r=20 \div 3000$ with an exponent $α\simeq 1$. This substantiates the choice of the above texts to analyse typical properties of the language complex network on their basis. Besides, an applicability of the Simon model to describe non-asymptotic properties of word distributions is evaluated.
In describing language as a complex network, usually the words are associated with nodes, whereas one may give different meanings to the network links. This results in different network representations. In the second part of the paper, we give different representations of the language network and perform comparative analysis of their characteristics. Our results demonstrate that the language network of Ukrainian is a strongly correlated scale-free small world. The empirical data obtained may be useful for a theoretical description of language evolution.
PACS number(s): 02.10.Ox, 87.75.Da, 89.75.Hc