9.112, Disc: Vocabulary Density

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-9-112. Fri Jan 23 1998. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 9.112, Disc: Vocabulary Density

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1)
Date:  Thu, 22 Jan 98 10:46:16 +0300
From:  "solovyev" <solovyev at open.ksu.ras.ru>
Subject:  Vocabulary density

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 22 Jan 98 10:46:16 +0300
From:  "solovyev" <solovyev at open.ksu.ras.ru>
Subject:  Vocabulary density

   Dear Linguists,

   How densely packed can vocabularies be ?

   What kind of discussion has there been about
   'vocabulary density' in natural and artificial
   languages ?

   Density could be depicted crudely as the ratio
   of recognised lexemes to phonemes in each
   category or word classed by size.  For example,
   for one-syllable sounds recognised in a language,
   a subset of these are recognised as 'words' -
   equally for two-syllable sound-strings, only a
   subset have established meanings.

   Presumably the closer the ratio is to 1.0, that
   is the more completely dense or packed the
   vocabulary is said to be, then the more ambiguity
   problems users and translators of the language
   will encounter.  A single phonetic or spelling
   error will be more likely (in a dense language)
   to inadvertently create another meaningful word.

   A lot of redundancy in a vocabulary - that is
   plenty of dummy words, made up of sound-strings
   not recognised as words, clustered 'around' each
   recognised word - may make a language more
   efficient for communicating.

   There must be many papers examining these
   issues, and I am hoping to find them on the
   web and catch up on where the discussion is
   at so far.  I guess it must be somewhere
   where linguistics meets information theory ?

   Mark Griffith, journalist
   markgriffith at yahoo.com

   This question was placed on the Web-site of
   "Web Journal of Formal, Computational and
   Cognitive Linguistics" (FCCL). Please send your
   opinion to e-mail address: <solovyev at tatincom.ru>
   too.

   Valery Solovyev, Editor of the FCCL.

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