{"doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0181987","title":"Unzipping Zipf’s law","abstract":null,"journal":"PLOS ONE","year":2017,"id":670898,"datarank":1.8220617216734019,"base_score":3.6635616461296463,"endowment":3.6635616461296463,"self_citation_contribution":0.5495342469194471,"citation_network_contribution":1.2725274747539548,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5495342469194471,"citer_contribution":1.2725274747539548,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":38,"citer_count":38,"citers_with_citation_signal":32,"citers_with_endowment":32,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1752603,"name":"Sander Lestrade","orcid":"0000-0002-6212-3239","position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Unzipping Zipf’s law","abstract":"In spite of decades of theorizing, the origins of Zipf's law remain elusive. I propose that a Zipfian distribution straightforwardly follows from the interaction of syntax (word classes differing in class size) and semantics (words having to be sufficiently specific to be distinctive and sufficiently general to be reusable). These factors are independently motivated and well-established ingredients of a natural-language system. Using a computational model, it is shown that neither of these ingredients suffices to produce a Zipfian distribution on its own and that the results deviate from the Zipfian ideal only in the same way as natural language itself does.","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":3.6635616461296463,"endowment":3.6635616461296463,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"28792963","pmcid":"PMC5549924","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W2744330362","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"NWO","grant_id":"Veni 275-78-001","title":null},{"funder_name":"Dutch Research Council (NWO)","grant_id":"275-78-001","title":"The exaptation of argument marking"}],"total_grants":2,"fwci":34.5267,"citation_percentile":0.99538449,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2018,"count":2},{"year":2019,"count":4},{"year":2020,"count":8},{"year":2021,"count":6},{"year":2022,"count":7},{"year":2023,"count":2},{"year":2024,"count":5},{"year":2025,"count":2},{"year":2026,"count":2}],"oa_status":"gold","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181987&type=printable","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181987&type=printable","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181987","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181987","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28792963","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2066/175448","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/5549924","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://doaj.org/article/28d20d160b1a4215a4dd0230c6fbfc9e","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Unzipping_Zipf_s_law/5294470","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5549924","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5549924?pdf=render","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181987","host_type":""},{"url":"https://hdl.handle.net/https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/handle/2066/175448","host_type":""},{"url":"https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181987","host_type":""},{"url":"https://repository.ubn.ru.nl//bitstream/handle/2066/175448/175448.pdf","host_type":""}],"fields_of_study":["Language and cultural evolution","Authorship Attribution and Profiling","Fractal and DNA sequence analysis","05 social sciences","06 humanities and the arts","0602 languages and literature","0501 psychology and cognitive sciences","Humans","Language","Linguistics","Models, Theoretical","Semantics","Vocabulary"],"mesh_terms":["Humans","Language","Linguistics","Models, Theoretical","Semantics","Vocabulary"],"keywords":["Zipf's law","Syntax","Semantics (computer science)","Computer science","Class (philosophy)","Word (group theory)","Natural language processing","Artificial intelligence","Linguistics","Mathematics","Programming language","Statistics","Philosophy","Science","Q","R","Models, Theoretical","Vocabulary","Language & Communication","Semantics","Medicine","Humans","Grammar & Cognition","Research Article","Language"],"sdg_mappings":[{"sdg_number":3,"sdg_label":"3. Good health"},{"sdg_number":16,"sdg_label":"16. Peace & justice"},{"sdg_number":0,"sdg_label":"Peace, Justice and strong institutions"}],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-16T00:27:17.244176Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}