Parameters of the Menzerath-Altmann law: Statistical mechanical interpretation as applied to a linguistic organization

TL;DR

This paper introduces a statistical mechanical interpretation of the Menzerath-Altmann law, transforming its parameters into structure-independent quantities and linking them to thermodynamic properties of linguistic organizations.

Contribution

The paper develops a generalized SMMA model with a structure-dependent parameter, providing a physical interpretation and improving understanding of the MA law's distribution behavior.

Findings

SMMA model fits linguistic data as well as the original MA model

Additional parameter relates to organization structure and thermodynamics

Model applicable to various organizational systems beyond linguistics

Abstract

The distribution behavior dictated by the Menzerath-Altmann (MA) law is frequently encountered in linguistic and natural organizations at various structural levels. The mathematical form of this empirical law comprises three fitting parameters whose values tend to be elusive, especially in inter-organizational studies. To allow interpretation of these parameters and better understand such distribution behavior, we present a statistical mechanical approach based on an analogy between the classical particles of a statistical mechanical organization and the number of distinct words in a textual organization. With this derivation, we achieve a transformed (generalized) form of the MA model, termed the statistical mechanical Menzerath-Altmann (SMMA) model. This novel transformed model consists of four parameters, one of which is a structure-dependent input parameter, and three of which are free-fitting parameters. Using distinct word data sets from two text corpora, we verified that the SMMA model describes the same distribution as the MA model. We propose that the additional structure-dependent parameter of the SMMA model converts the three fitting parameters into structure-independent parameters. Moreover, the parameters of the SMMA model are associated with a corresponding physical interpretation that can lead to characterization of an organization' s thermodynamic properties. We also propose that many organizations presenting MA law behavior, whether linguistic or not, can be examined by the SMMA distribution model through the properly defined structural degeneracy parameter and the energy associated states.