On the dependency of word length on text length. Empirical results from Russian and Bulgarian parallel texts

This paper tackles two basic problems of quantitative linguistics: firstly the “word length” and secondly the text length in terms of type and token numbers. It has to be shown that these two basic properties of a text are directly related. The interrelation between word length and text length can be captured by an appropriate mathematical model; hence a law-like status of the interrelation between word length and text length can be stated. Up to now, no special attention has been paid to this particular kind of self regulation (increase of the word length with increasing text length) of the text structure, which can be explained by a general control of the information flow on the lexical level. After a theoretical explanation of the interrelation of word and text length, some empirical results are presented on the basis of Russian and Bulgarian parallel texts The Master and Margarita).