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Complexity Characteristics of Natural Language

A special issue of Entropy (ISSN 1099-4300). This special issue belongs to the section "Complexity".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 November 2024 | Viewed by 465

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Complex Systems Theory Department, Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, 31-342 Kraków, Poland
2. Faculty of Computer Science and Telecommunications, Cracow University of Technology, 31-155 Kraków, Poland
Interests: complex systems; nuclear physics; quantum mechanics; multifractals; complex networks; nonlinear dynamics; deterministic chaos; random matrix theory; econophysics; quantitative linguistics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Complex Systems Theory Department, Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, 31-342 Kraków, Poland
Interests: complex systems; complex networks; financial markets; natural language; fractal analysis
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Complex Systems Theory Department, Institute of Nuclear Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Radzikowskiego 152, 31-342 Kraków, Poland
Interests: complex systems; complex networks; numerical analysis; quantitative linguistics; machine learning; statistics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The science of complexity is an interdisciplinary approach to seeking answers to the question of the principles by which nature operates when composing basic elements of matter and energy into dynamic patterns and structures that propagate throughout the entire hierarchy of scales in the universe. The associated extraordinary emergent phenomenon, such as the syntactically organized natural language, superbly reflects these patterns and structures, expressed in its great ability to encode and transmit information about them and between them. Therefore, it is highly reasonable to expect that natural language—spontaneously created by nature—best mirrors the laws of nature and carries within it the essence of complexity. Indeed, the complex systems methodology, which includes time series analysis, various variants of the concept of entropy, scale-free laws, fractals and multifractals, and, of course, complex networks, proves to be very effective in quantifying universal as well as system-specific linguistic characteristics. For the most up-to-date related review, see “Complex Systems Approach to Natural Language” at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2023.12.002.It can also be added that, from the perspective of human communities, natural language is a fundamental factor shaping the development of civilization in all its aspects. Nowadays, quantitative studies on language and the need to understand the principles governing it are also gaining particular importance in the context of products such as ChatGPT from the family of language models developed by OpenAI. It is expected, in particular, that these studies will contribute to further significant improvements and optimization of relevant procedures, which, as is widely known, is highly desirable in this context. 

We thus invite researchers representing various disciplines, including language studies, computer studies, physics, mathematics, data science, and others, to submit their original papers reporting studies—empirical as well as modeling—whose results may contribute to a better understanding of the origins of natural language and the principles of its organization. It is obvious that such research should include various complementary representations of natural language belonging to different families, not only the major ones such as Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan but also those in less common use.

Prof. Dr. Stanisław Drożdż
Dr. Jarosław Kwapień
Dr. Tomasz Stanisz
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Entropy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • natural language
  • complexity
  • hierarchical organization
  • long-range correlations
  • time series analysis
  • scaling laws
  • multifractals
  • complex networks
  • large language models
  • natural language generation

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 5859 KiB  
Article
Multifractal Hopscotch in Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar
by Jakub Dec, Michał Dolina, Stanisław Drożdż, Jarosław Kwapień and Tomasz Stanisz
Entropy 2024, 26(8), 716; https://doi.org/10.3390/e26080716 (registering DOI) - 22 Aug 2024
Viewed by 144
Abstract
Punctuation is the main factor introducing correlations in natural language written texts and it crucially impacts their overall effectiveness, expressiveness, and readability. Punctuation marks at the end of sentences are of particular importance as their distribution can determine various complexity features of written [...] Read more.
Punctuation is the main factor introducing correlations in natural language written texts and it crucially impacts their overall effectiveness, expressiveness, and readability. Punctuation marks at the end of sentences are of particular importance as their distribution can determine various complexity features of written natural language. Here, the sentence length variability (SLV) time series representing Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar are subjected to quantitative analysis with an attempt to identify their distribution type, long-memory effects, and potential multiscale patterns. The analyzed novel is an important and innovative piece of literature whose essential property is freedom of movement between its building blocks given to a reader by the author. The statistical consequences of this freedom are closely investigated in both the original, Spanish version of the novel, and its translations into English and Polish. Clear evidence of rich multifractality in the SLV dynamics, with a left-sided asymmetry, however, is observed in all three language versions as well as in the versions with differently ordered chapters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Complexity Characteristics of Natural Language)
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