Quantification in Linguistics and Text Analysis

Selected Papers of Gabriel Altmann

Emmerich Kelih, Ján Mačutek, Michaela Koščová

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• eBook ISBN:
  9783111351605
• Subtopic: Grammar & Punctuation
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This volume contains the most important theoretical and methodological works of Gabriel Altmann (1931-2019). He is the founder of a specific school of quantitative linguistics, which focuses on the statistical analysis and interrelationship of linguistic features and characteristics. His approach concentrates on the construction of a general theory of linguistics. The theory is based on the relevance of linguistic laws (Zipf's, Menzerath's and Piotrowski's) and concepts of language as a self-regulating system. In contrast to approaches where quantitative methods are used as standard methodological tools, Altmann favours a "holistic" and epistemological view of problems of quantification of linguistic and textual phenomena.

Table of contents

• Contents
• List of figures
• Editors’ foreword
• Status and goals of quantitative linguistics
• On linguistic vagueness
• Mathematical linguistics
• Towards a theory of language
• Prolegomena to Menzerath’s law
• On functional analysis in linguistics
• On the dynamic approach to language
• Language theory and mathematical models
• Synergetic aspects of linguistics
• The levels of linguistic investigation
• Bühler or Zipf? A re-interpretation
• Modelling diversification phenomena in language
• The problem of data homogeneity
• Prospects of text linguistics
• “Language forces” and synergetic modelling of language phenomena
• The levels of order in language
• From technical language to a model
• Aims and methods of quantitative linguistics
• Fashion and truth in linguistics
• Index