Heap's Law

[davidjackson]

Torsten, I appreciate that. I'm not criticising your generation theory, simply pointing out that algorithm you used to create the corpus of text on the referenced post creates words in a linear fashion. Nothing more.

You have to split the text of the VMS into different parts. If you then compare the graphs for the different sections this can be interesting. It seems for instance that the graph for herbal pages in Currier A is similar to the graph for herbal pages in Currier B. This is an interesting result. Even if they use different word types they have something in common.

This is what I have been trying to do, in a very roundabout way. It will be interesting to see how the labels respond, for example.

MarcoP: David, what do you mean when you say that the ratio of creation is "constant"? Do you mean that the number of unique words increases linearly with text length?

Here I was referring to Torsten's text. Words in his corpus were created on a linear basis, whereas the Heap's line is a power line, and hence the two diverge.

If you look at the graph from the stars section you see how the creation rate rises and falls -something which I assume without proof is due to the introduction of new topics-, but still has an association with the power line.