A Note on Zipf's Law, Natural Languages, and Noncoding DNA Regions.
Abstract
In Phys. Rev. Letiers, 73:2. 5 Dec. 94, Mantegna et al. conclude on the basis of Zipf rank frequency data that noncoding DNA sequence regions are more like natural languages than coding regions. We argue on the contrary that an empirical fit to Zipf's law" cannot be used as a criterion for similarity to natural languages. Although DNA is a presumably an organized system of signs" in Mandelbrot's (1961) sense, an observation of statistical features of the sort presented in the Mantegna et al. paper does not shed light on the similarity between DNA's "grammar" and natural language grammars, just as the observation of exact Zipf-like behavior cannot distinguish between the underlying processes of tossing an M sided die or a finite-state branching process. (AN)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1995
- Accession Number
- ADA298420
Entities
People
- Partha Niyogi
- Robert C. Berwick
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology