Quantifying Evolution of Short and Long-Range Correlations in Chinese Narrative Texts across 2000 Years
We investigate how short and long-range word length correlations evolve in Chinese narrative texts. The results show that, for short-range word length correlations, no significant linear evolutionary trend was found. But for long-range correlations, there are two opposite tendencies for two differen...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2018-01-01
|
| Series: | Complexity |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2018/9362468 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1849395613906501632 |
|---|---|
| author | Heng Chen Haitao Liu |
| author_facet | Heng Chen Haitao Liu |
| author_sort | Heng Chen |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | We investigate how short and long-range word length correlations evolve in Chinese narrative texts. The results show that, for short-range word length correlations, no significant linear evolutionary trend was found. But for long-range correlations, there are two opposite tendencies for two different regimes: the Hurst exponent of small-scale (box size n ranges from 10 to 100) word length correlations decreases over time, and the exponent of large-scale (box size n ranges from 101 to 1000) shows an increasing tendency. The increase of word length is corroborated as an essential regularity of word evolution in written Chinese. Further analyses show that a significant correlation coefficient is obtained between Hurst exponents from the small-scale correlations and mean word length across time. These indicate that word length correlation evolution possesses different self-adaptive mechanisms in terms of different scales of distances between words. We speculate that the increase of word length and sentence length in written Chinese may account for this phenomenon, in terms of both the social-cultural aspects and the self-adapting properties of language structures. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-aa8a0d6fff224274b96b9ee034790e31 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1076-2787 1099-0526 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2018-01-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Complexity |
| spelling | doaj-art-aa8a0d6fff224274b96b9ee034790e312025-08-20T03:39:32ZengWileyComplexity1076-27871099-05262018-01-01201810.1155/2018/93624689362468Quantifying Evolution of Short and Long-Range Correlations in Chinese Narrative Texts across 2000 YearsHeng Chen0Haitao Liu1Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510420, ChinaCenter for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510420, ChinaWe investigate how short and long-range word length correlations evolve in Chinese narrative texts. The results show that, for short-range word length correlations, no significant linear evolutionary trend was found. But for long-range correlations, there are two opposite tendencies for two different regimes: the Hurst exponent of small-scale (box size n ranges from 10 to 100) word length correlations decreases over time, and the exponent of large-scale (box size n ranges from 101 to 1000) shows an increasing tendency. The increase of word length is corroborated as an essential regularity of word evolution in written Chinese. Further analyses show that a significant correlation coefficient is obtained between Hurst exponents from the small-scale correlations and mean word length across time. These indicate that word length correlation evolution possesses different self-adaptive mechanisms in terms of different scales of distances between words. We speculate that the increase of word length and sentence length in written Chinese may account for this phenomenon, in terms of both the social-cultural aspects and the self-adapting properties of language structures.http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2018/9362468 |
| spellingShingle | Heng Chen Haitao Liu Quantifying Evolution of Short and Long-Range Correlations in Chinese Narrative Texts across 2000 Years Complexity |
| title | Quantifying Evolution of Short and Long-Range Correlations in Chinese Narrative Texts across 2000 Years |
| title_full | Quantifying Evolution of Short and Long-Range Correlations in Chinese Narrative Texts across 2000 Years |
| title_fullStr | Quantifying Evolution of Short and Long-Range Correlations in Chinese Narrative Texts across 2000 Years |
| title_full_unstemmed | Quantifying Evolution of Short and Long-Range Correlations in Chinese Narrative Texts across 2000 Years |
| title_short | Quantifying Evolution of Short and Long-Range Correlations in Chinese Narrative Texts across 2000 Years |
| title_sort | quantifying evolution of short and long range correlations in chinese narrative texts across 2000 years |
| url | http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2018/9362468 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT hengchen quantifyingevolutionofshortandlongrangecorrelationsinchinesenarrativetextsacross2000years AT haitaoliu quantifyingevolutionofshortandlongrangecorrelationsinchinesenarrativetextsacross2000years |