Equilibrium of words in the Finnish frequency dictionary

Abstract

The article shows eleven properties of words that influence their frequency of occurrence in texts and contribute to the steady state holding in the lexicon. Some of the hypotheses stated here have already been studied by different authors, other ones are new and can be tested on data from different languages. In the paper only the so‐called “scoop law”; concerning the relation between length and position in the main clause will be illustrated.

Notes

Address correspondence to: Antero Niemikorpi, University of Vaasa, P.P.B. 297, FIN‐65101 Vaasa, Finland.