Why Context Matters In The Long And Short Of Words – Science News – redOrbit

Why Context Matters In The Long And Short Of Words – Science News – redOrbit.

Love, amour, liebe, amor and kärlek all mean the same thing across different languages and all are about the same length, which according to Zipf is what should be expected if they were similarly predictable or informative.  But the MIT researchers stress it’s the words before and after a particular word that determines how often the particular word is used, not length.