Network model of human language

The phenomenon of human language is widely studied from various points of view. It is interesting not only for social scientists, antropologists or philosophers, but also for those, interested in the network dynamics. In several recent papers word web, or language as a graph has been investigated [R.F. Cancho, R. Sole, The small world of human language, Proc. R. Soc. London B 268 (2001) 2261-2265; A.E. Motter, P.S. de Moura, Lai Ying-Cheng, P. Dasgupta, Topology of the conceptual network of language, Phys. Rev. E 65 (2002) R 065102; M. Steyvers, J.B. Tenenbaum, The large-scale structure of semantic networks: Statistical analysis and a model of semantic growth, Cogn. Sci. 29 (2005) 41-78]. In this paper I revise recent studies of syntactical word web [R.E Cancho, R. Sole, The small world of human language, Proc. R. Soc. London B 268 (2001) 2261-2265; S.N. Dorogovtsev, J.F.F Mendes, Language as an evolving word web, Proc. R. Soc. London B 268 (2001) 2603-2606]. 1 present a model of growing network in which such processes as node addition, edge rewiring and new link creation are taken into account. I argue, that this model is a satisfactory minimal model explaining measured data [R.F. Cancho, R. Sole, The small world of human language, Proc. R. Soc. London B 268 (2001) 2261-2265; M. Markosova, P. Nather, Language as a graph, in: V Kvasnicka, P. Trebaticky, J. Pospichal (Eds.), Mind, Intelligence and Life, Kelemen, STU Bratislava, 2007, pp. 298-307 (in Slovak)]. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.