The meaning-frequency law in Zipfian optimization models of communication
This provides theoretical evidence for a weak version of the meaning-frequency law in linguistic models, which is incremental as it builds on existing Zipfian frameworks.
The paper investigates Zipf's meaning-frequency law, showing that a linear relationship between word frequency and number of meanings emerges in certain optimization models of communication, specifically within the regime where these models exhibit Zipf's law for word frequencies.
According to Zipf's meaning-frequency law, words that are more frequent tend to have more meanings. Here it is shown that a linear dependency between the frequency of a form and its number of meanings is found in a family of models of Zipf's law for word frequencies. This is evidence for a weak version of the meaning-frequency law. Interestingly, that weak law (a) is not an inevitable of property of the assumptions of the family and (b) is found at least in the narrow regime where those models exhibit Zipf's law for word frequencies.