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How useful is the logarithmic type/token ratio?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Michael Weitzman
Michael Weitzman
Affiliation:
Univerrity College, London
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Extract

What has been described as ‘one of the most remarkable (facts) in quantitative linguistics’ is the constancy of the logarithmic type/token ratio. If V denotes vocabulary and N text length, then log V/log N ‘remains sensibly constant for samples of different size from a given literary text’.1

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , September 1971 , pp. 237 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

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References

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