Combinatorics & Synchronization in Natural Semiotics

In this study the derivation of an objective metrics to appreciate the degree of structuring of written and spoken texts is presented. The proposed metrics is based on the scoring of recurrences inside a text by means of the application of Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA), a non linear technique widely used in other fields of sciences. The adopted approach allowed us to create a ranking of different poems strictly related to their prosodic structure and, more importantly, the possibility to recognize the same structure across different languages, to define a level of structuring typical of spoken texts and identifying the progressive synchronization of a dyadic relation between two speakers in terms of relative complexity of their speeches. These results suggest the possibility of introducing objective measurement methods into humanities studies. Classification codes (MSC): 68R05 Combinatorics, 68T50 Natural language processing, 91E10 Cognitive psychology, 91E45 Measurement and performance, 94A17 Measures of information, entropy