The Lognormal Frequency Model and Adjective Trait Names
John H. Bowen · Psychological Reports · 1971
A lognormal model, suggested by Carroll, provides a satisfactory description of the frequency-of-occurrence distribution for trait adjectives which are scaled for likeableness. There are strong similarities between the best-fitting functions for trait adjectives and for nouns from a familiarity scale. The similarities suggest that there may be a family of lognormal functions which are common to words which are selected for grammatical class.