Data Analysis on the Basis of Numerals Statistics

Abstract

Two approaches to content analysis of text data are suggested, both based on the statistical study of numerals occurrence in texts. The first approach is related to counting the frequency distribution of various leading digits of numerals occurring in the text. These frequencies are unequal: the digit 1 is strongly dominating; usually, the incidence of subsequent digits is monotonically decreasing. The frequencies of occurrence of the digit 1, as well as, to a lesser extent, the digits 2 and 3, are usually a characteristic author's style feature, manifested in all (sufficiently long) literary texts of any author. This approach is convenient for testing whether a group of texts has common authorship: the latter is dubious if the frequency distributions are sufficiently different. The second approach is the extension of the first one and requires the study of the frequency distribution of numerals themselves (not their leading digits). The approach yields non-trivial information about the author, stylistic and genre peculiarities of the texts and is suited for the advanced stylometric analysis. The proposed approaches are illustrated by examples of computer analysis of the literary texts in Lithuanian – by S. Daukantas, A. Baranauskas, Maironis, and J. Tumas-Vaižgantas.