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Fenk-Oczlon, Gertraud, Fenk, August

Zipf's tool analogy and word order

This article starts with Zipf's (1949) "Tool Analogy", where the artisan arranges and re-designs his tools in a way minimizing his total work; as a result, more frequently used tools tend to be nearer to him (better accessible), smaller and multifunctional. We then argue that short distance, small size and multifunctionality reflect not only a high overall relative frequency of usage, but in particular a high frequency of usage in the first steps of a variety of complex working procedures. Tool order – word order? This extended Tool Analogy fits to the tendency of more frequent words to obtain initial positions in frozen binomials (Fenk-Oczlon 1989) and the new finding (Fenk & Fenk-Oczlon 2002a,b) that the short, frequent and multifunctional function words tend to concentrate in the first part of sentences.

Glottometrics, RAM-Verlag

Volume: 5, 12/2002
Pages: 22-28

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