The small world of human language

The small world of human language

2001 | Ramon Ferrer i Cancho and Ricard V. Solé
The paper explores the organizational structure of human language, highlighting its non-random interactions and the rapid construction of sentences from a limited set of discrete units. The authors analyze the co-occurrence of words in sentences, which reflects subtle language organization and can be described using a graph of word interactions. This graph exhibits two significant features: the small-world effect and a scale-free distribution of degrees. The average distance between words is found to be around 2-3, despite the brain's ability to store thousands of words. The scale-free distribution of degrees is also observed, with the removal of highly connected vertices leading to network fragility, as seen in certain language disorders. These findings suggest that the organization of language may reflect its evolutionary and social history, contributing to its flexibility and combinatorial nature. The study provides insights into the statistical regularities of language and the underlying network properties that support its diversity and robustness.The paper explores the organizational structure of human language, highlighting its non-random interactions and the rapid construction of sentences from a limited set of discrete units. The authors analyze the co-occurrence of words in sentences, which reflects subtle language organization and can be described using a graph of word interactions. This graph exhibits two significant features: the small-world effect and a scale-free distribution of degrees. The average distance between words is found to be around 2-3, despite the brain's ability to store thousands of words. The scale-free distribution of degrees is also observed, with the removal of highly connected vertices leading to network fragility, as seen in certain language disorders. These findings suggest that the organization of language may reflect its evolutionary and social history, contributing to its flexibility and combinatorial nature. The study provides insights into the statistical regularities of language and the underlying network properties that support its diversity and robustness.
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[slides and audio] The small world of human language