Claus length

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Claus length is defined by the number of linguistic units that make up a clause . Clause, in turn, corresponds approximately to the sub-clause , but does not exactly match it.

Determination of the Claus length

The Claus length can be determined by the number of each smaller unit ( letters , sounds , morphs , syllables and others). So far, the Claus length has always been indicated by the number of words.

Significance of the Claus length in stylistics

The Claus length has so far been used in both quantitative stylistics and quantitative linguistics .

In quantitative stylistics , text types can be distinguished with the help of the criterion of the average Claus length ; Pieper gives the following overview:

x
Text group
Claus length (median)
1
radio play
6.72
2
drama
6.82
3
Roman dialogue
6.75
4th
discussion
7.91
5
Novel non-dialogue
7.89
6th
Letters
9.42
7th
Scientific texts
11.62
8th
General legal texts
14.00
9
Newspaper: Agency reports
13.01
10
Newspaper: Own reports
11.57
11
Newspaper: feature section
11.41
12
Newspaper: sports reports
11.71

It should be noted here that Pieper's data reflect the median (central value) of the Claus length, not the arithmetic mean. Even if this information is strongly dependent on the evaluated texts, there are indications that there are clear differences between the text groups.

Significance of the Claus length in linguistics

In quantitative linguistics , Clauselengths were examined as a function of sentence length. It is about Menzerath's law , which, based on the length of Claus, reads as follows: "The longer a sentence, measured in the number of clauses, the shorter the clauses, measured in the number of words." Heups support this assumption:

x
n (x)
NP (x)
1
12.4122
12.3638
2
10.2700
10.4111
3
9.5500
9.4547
4th
9.0319
8.8560
5
8.5076
8.4370
6th
8.0040
8.1244
7th
7.9201
7.8816
8th
7.1733
7.6875
9
6.8413
7.5292
10
7.0833
7.3983
11
7.4380
7.2889

(Where x is the number of clauses per sentence, n (x) is the proportion of sentences with x clauses observed in this corpus of sentences; NP (x) is the proportion of sentences with x clauses that is calculated when one of the forms of Menzerath's You can see very clearly that the Claus length decreases when the sentence length increases. Result: Menzerath's law is a good model for this text group. For more detailed explanations, please refer to the literature given.)

Köhler came to a comparable result for English texts, Teupenhayn & Altmann examined texts from 9 languages ​​and also support Menzerath's law.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ursula Pieper: About the significance of statistical methods for the linguistic style analysis. Narr, Tübingen 1979, page 67. ISBN 3-87808-355-6 .
  2. ↑ Gabriela Heups: Investigations into the relationship between sentence length and Claus length using the example of German texts in different text classes . In: Reinhard Köhler & Joachim Boy (eds.): Glottometrika 5 . Brockmeyer, Bochum 1983, pages 113-133, quotation page 114. ISBN 3-88339-307-X .
  3. ↑ Heups 1983, page 121.
  4. ↑ Reinhard Köhler : The Menzerath law on sentence level. In: Werner Lehfeldt , Udo Strauss (eds.): Glottometrika 4. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1982, pages 103-113. ISBN 3-88339-250-2 .
  5. ↑ R. Teupenhayn & G. Altmann: Clause length and Menzerath's law . In: J. Boy & R. Koehler (eds.): Glottometrika 6 . Brockmeyer, Bochum 1984, pages 127-138.

literature

  • Karl-Heinz Best : Distribution of phrase and sub-clause lengths in German technical language . In: Naukovyj Visnyk Černivec'koho Universytetu: Herman'ska filolohija , Vypusk 319-320, 2006, pages 113-120.

See also