Quantitative Text Typology: The Impact of Sentence Length

This study focuses on the contribution of sentence length for a quantitative text typology. Therefore, 333 Slovenian texts are analyzed with regard to their sentence length. By way of multivariate discriminant analyses it is shown that indeed, a text typology is possible, based on sentence length, only; this typology, however, does not coincide with traditional text classifications, such as, e.g., text sorts or functional style. Rather, a new categorization into specific discourse types seems reaonable. 1 Sentence length and text classification: methodological remarks Text research, based on quantitative methods, is characterized by two major spheres of interest: (1) quantitative text classification, in general (cf., e.g., Alekseev 1988), and (2) authorship discrimination and attribution of disputed authorship, in particular (cf., e.g., Smith 1983). Both lines of research are closely interrelated and share the common interest to identify and quantify specific text characteristics, with sentence length playing a crucial role and obviously being an important factor. However, in most approaches sentence length is combined with other quantitative measures as, e.g., the proportion of particular parts of speech, word length (usually measured by the number of letters per word), the proportion of specific prepositions, etc. (cf. Karlgren/Cutting 1994, Copeck et al. 2000). This, in fact, causes a major problem, since the specific amount of information, which sentence length may provide for questions of text classification, remains unclear. The present study starts at this particular point; the objective is an empirical analysis based on a corpus of 333 Slovenian texts. From a methodological perspective, the procedure includes the following steps, before multivariate discriminant analyses will be applied to quantitative text classification: a. the theoretical discussion of qualitative approaches to text classification, mainly of research in the realm of text sorts and functional styles, and the relevance of these classifications for empirical studies; b. the elaboration of an operational definition of ‘sentence’ as well as of a consistent measuring unit;