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Topology of the conceptual network of language

Adilson E. Motter, Alessandro P. S. de Moura, Ying-Cheng Lai, and Partha Dasgupta
Phys. Rev. E 65, 065102(R) – Published 25 June 2002
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Abstract

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.

  • Received 5 April 2002

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.65.065102

©2002 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Adilson E. Motter1, Alessandro P. S. de Moura1,2, Ying-Cheng Lai1,3, and Partha Dasgupta4

  • 1Department of Mathematics, Center for Systems Science and Engineering Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287
  • 2Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 66318, 05315-970 São Paulo, Brazil
  • 3Departments of Electrical Engineering and Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287
  • 4Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287

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Vol. 65, Iss. 6 — June 2002

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