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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Peter Kirk's homonym percentage table

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>
  • To: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: B Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Peter Kirk's homonym percentage table
  • Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:06:13 +0000

On 21/01/2007 05:53, K Randolph wrote:
Peter:

I'm having an intuitive reaction that something doesn't seem right
here. I don't know enough to be able to tell what is wrong, but if the
formula is correct, it should not be giving the obviously incorrect
response for the resh.

The original formula was not completely correct in that it involved some approximations which were not completely valid. The adjusted formula should be more correct, but is too complex to calculate precisely. My estimate of the result given by the new formula is in the same region as the observed figures for resh. But in fact I would be rather surprised to see a precise fit, for the basic assumptions I made in the hypothesis, that verb roots are randomly distributed with no tendency to avoid homonyms, seem so unlikely.

I sent a copy of the spreadsheet with some explanatory info. to a
friend who has a PhD in statistics, but he hasn't responded yet.

I would be interested in any response.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail: peter AT qaya.org
Blog: http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/





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