"We establish concrete mathematical criteria to distinguish between different kinds of written storytelling, fictional and non-fictional. Specifically, we constructed a semantic network from both novels and news stories, with $N$ independent words as vertices or nodes, and edges or links allotted to words occurring within $m$ places of a given vertex; we call $m$ the word distance. We then used measures from complex network theory to distinguish between news and fiction, studying the minimal text length needed as well as the optimized word distance $m$. The literature samples were found to be most effectively represented by their corresponding power laws over degree distribution $P(k)$ and clustering coefficient $C(k)$; we also studied the mean geodesic distance, and found all our texts were small-world networks.…"

"…The h index is compared with the Degree centrality (a local measure), the Betweenness and Eigenvector centralities (two non-local measures) in the case of a biological network (Yeast interaction protein-protein network) and a linguistic network (Moby Thesaurus II). In both networks, the Hirsch index has poor correlation with Betweenness centrality but correlates well with Eigenvector centrality, specially for the more important nodes that are relevant for ranking purposes, say in Search Engine Optimization. In the thesaurus network, the h index seems even to outperform the Eigenvector centrality measure as evaluated by simple linguistic criteria."

"Building a repository of proof-checked mathematical knowledge is without any doubt a lot of work, and besides the actual formalization process there also is the task of maintaining the repository. Thus it seems obvious to keep a repsoitory as small as possible, in particular each piece of mathematical knowledge should be formalized only once. In this paper, however, we claim that it might be reasonable or even necessary to duplicate knowledge in a mathematical repository. We analyze different situations and reasons for doing so and provide a number of examples supporting our thesis."

"Lovers of literature, grammar and language, this is the place where you can work together to improve future generations of technology. By indicating relationships between words and phrases you will help to create a resource that is rich in linguistic information.
Simply register a username and password and you can get started."

"As the review said, one of the things McMahon points out in the book is, there is a regrettable tendency in numerical approaches to linguistics to just put the raw data into the Analysatrons, and see what happens. And she said, in a more measured and thoughtful way than I just did, that this is nonsense: a linguist still needs to make sense of the input, identify what correlations are worth pursuing, and filter out what methodologically needs filtering out.

I mean, word lengths and word frequencies? Even Plato had a more sophisticated understanding of language structure than that; and that's not saying much."

"After applying conversational analysis tools, Pedersen asserted that language is more than the simple act of transferring information, but a conversational interaction between active participants. Language-competent bonobos use lexigrams, which are made up of arbitrary symbols that represent words, as the basis for conversations with humans.

Pedersen said linguistic aspects of the conversation included turn taking, negotiation, pauses and repetition, and went far beyond information sharing made possible through the use of lexigrams symbols.

"She was using language to get at what she wanted," Pedersen said. "She is very, very clever and is fully capable of following the conversation the same way a human does. This tells me that Panbanisha's knowledge of language is far beyond understanding the words, to understanding how to use them in a conversation to get what she wants."

Somebody was asking about this in a conversation. Ed?

recombination

"The last time I went to Boston—Massachusetts—was in the summer."

One wants to know how set boundaries may be made fluid again. One wants, I think, to let people do what they enjoy. There are enough of us for that.

via rfrank at the Distributed Proofreaders community

I ate a delicious mariposa plum the other day from Produce Station, very ripe, and it tasted //exactly// like a "suicide" Mister Misty used to taste. ////Exactly////.

Now, that's pedantry!

"The Shadows' own name for themselves is 10,000 letters long, and unpronounceable by many," says Wikipedia....

Two linguistic just-so stories about te follies of English pronunciation. Blame the floppy-throated Frenchies.

Where to hide an elephant

How many local languages and cants have come and gone, unremarked?