Word length in Chinese : The Menzerath-Altmann law is valid after all.
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | JOURNAL OF QUANTITATIVE LINGUISTICS |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09296174.2023.2259937 |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09296174.2023.2259937 |
| Keywords | word length; Menzerath-Altmann law; Chinese; syllable; Chinese characters |
| Description | According to the Menzerath-Altmann law, longer language constructs consist, on average, of shorter constituents. It is most often studied at the level of words and syllables (the mean syllable length gets shorter with the increasing word length). Its validity at this level was corroborated in several languages. However, it was claimed that Chinese is an exception with respect to the validity of the Menzerath-Altmann law. We show that the law is valid if word types are considered, while the behaviour of word tokens is different. This difference can be explained by the fact that the Zipf law of abbreviation is valid not only for words but also for syllables (shorter syllables are used more frequently). |