Topology of the conceptual network of language.
We define two words in a language to be connected if they express similar concepts. The network of connections among the many thousands of words that make up a language is important not only for the study of the structure and evolution of languages, but also for cognitive science. We study this issue quantitatively, by mapping out the conceptual network of the English language, with the connections being defined by the entries in a Thesaurus dictionary. We find that this network presents a small-world structure, with an amazingly small average shortest path, and appears to exhibit an asymptotic scale-free feature with algebraic connectivity distribution.
Motter
Adilson E
AE
Department of Mathematics, Center for Systems Science and Engineering Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
de Moura
Alessandro P S
AP
Lai
Ying-Cheng
YC
Dasgupta
Partha
P