Polysemous words:meaning,length and frequency
Wang Hu · 2009
This paper analyzes 10,632 Chinese polysemous words extracted from The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (the Fifth Edition). It shows a strong correlation between the quantity of word meanings and the frequency of the word. High-frequency words tend to possess more meanings than low-frequency ones. On the other hand, high-frequency words also prove the shortest and simplest. These parameters follow the pattern predicated by Zipf's Principal of Least Effort. It is hoped that the results of this study will impel in-depth investigations of word frequency in Chinese.