From tony@math.sunysb.edu Tue Oct 24 12:30:28 2000 Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 12:26:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Tony Phillips To: elc9j@unix.mail.virginia.edu Cc: tony@math.sunysb.edu Subject: information theory? This could be a joke but is not. I'm doing my column on "Information Theory and Natural Languages" this month. Is there anything I should know? I'm planning to say, like, since Mandarin is so phonetically impoverished it should take more syllables to communicate the same message than, say, in English. Presumably they speak a little faster, since another of my axioms is that all surviving languages are equally efficient in getting the news across. I think I need help. Tony From tony@math.sunysb.edu Wed Oct 25 18:57:30 2000 Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 18:35:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Tony Phillips To: "Ellen L. Contini-Morava" Cc: Tony Phillips Subject: Re: information theory? I don't think I need 20 pp. Just the 3 tables: mandarin, plautine and English. Fax number is 632-7631 Many thanks - I know this is a headache. Tony On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, Ellen L. Contini-Morava wrote: > Hmm, I see you're asking for more than 20 pp. of tables. That will take a > LONG time to scan and upload. It would be a lot faster for me to just > xerox and fax them. Is there a fax number they could be sent to? Or > maybe I haven't understood exactly which parts you need and will see that > more clearly when I have the book in front of me. But I'm a little > pressed for time so the more precise you can be the better. (And it would > be easier to just xerox a bunch of stuff and let you sort it out than try > to do that myself.) > > L > > > > From elc9j@unix.mail.virginia.edu Wed Oct 25 18:59:40 2000 Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 13:57:21 -0400 (EDT) From: "Ellen L. Contini-Morava" To: Tony Phillips Subject: Re: information theory? (more) OK, we have both of Zipf's books here. I can xerox the tables and scan them and send them as an attachment (our scanner only makes .tif files, I hope you can read those). Or I can fax them when I'm back in the office tomorrow if you send me a fax number. Don't know which Chomsky-type psycholinguist you mean--George Miller and Thomas Bever come to mind but neither of them sounds like Kapok. I have a feeling that some of Leonard Bloomfield's students flirted around with information theory back in the 50's/60's--Charles Hockett? He has a book of collected essays called The View From Language. An interesting guy who also wrote a thing about the concept of the phoneme for a sci-fi magazine (called How to Learn Martian, I use it in my language and culture course). He also wrote a book called Language, Mathematics, and Linguistics which I've never read but might be worth a squint. Back later with tables, L On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, Tony Phillips wrote: > Katz and Fodor is what I was trying to think of. > > psycholinguist of the 60s. What WAS his name? But probably > out of date. Kabosh Kapok > > What might be useful for me, but not the way Zipf wanted to > use them, are his frequency studies. They are not reprinted > completely in "The psycho-biology of language..." but he > cites his "Selected Studies of the Principle of Relative > Frequency in Langage" Harvard 1932 which we don't have. If > you could get hold of it for me, I need the tables on p. 23 > (and maybe some on pp 31-51? and Appendix C) giving > number of occurrences vs. number of words. The problem with > the tables in "The psycho-biology..." is that the tails > are collapsed, i.e. the Chinese one runs up to > number of occurrences 101, 2 words, but then 102-905, 12 > words. Same for "Plautine Latin" (Plaw-TEEN, will you get over > here!) and for English tables he reproduces. I need those > tails. > > T. > > > From tony@math.sunysb.edu Thu Oct 26 12:38:11 2000 Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 20:40:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Tony Phillips To: "Ellen L. Contini-Morava" Cc: Tony Phillips Subject: Re: information theory? Thanks! I went to the library and looked at Becker's book which is fascinating but about the kind of subtle problem I'd like to avoid. Picked up, scanned and put down a very annoying book by Hofstedter "Le ton beau de Marot" The Zipf you recommended has been stolen or something. But I found his "The Psychobiology of Language" and checked it out. Looks like it might help. Also took "Psycholinguistics" ed by Osgood and Sebeok. I have stuff at home, now that I think of it, by the Chomsky-circle psycholinguist of the 60s. What WAS his name? But probably out of date. Kabosh Kapok They sell used books. I bought "Zapotec Deviance" for Jack. Unless he already has it. T. From tony@math.sunysb.edu Fri Oct 27 14:36:31 2000 Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 10:39:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Tony Phillips To: elc9j@unix.mail.virginia.edu Cc: Tony Phillips Subject: Re: information theory? (more) Katz and Fodor is what I was trying to think of. psycholinguist of the 60s. What WAS his name? But probably out of date. Kabosh Kapok What might be useful for me, but not the way Zipf wanted to use them, are his frequency studies. They are not reprinted completely in "The psycho-biology of language..." but he cites his "Selected Studies of the Principle of Relative Frequency in Langage" Harvard 1932 which we don't have. If you could get hold of it for me, I need the tables on p. 23 (and maybe some on pp 31-51? and Appendix C) giving number of occurrences vs. number of words. The problem with the tables in "The psycho-biology..." is that the tails are collapsed, i.e. the Chinese one runs up to number of occurrences 101, 2 words, but then 102-905, 12 words. Same for "Plautine Latin" (Plaw-TEEN, will you get over here!) and for English tables he reproduces. I need those tails. T.