Zipf’s Law of Abbreviation holds for individual characters across a broad range of writing systems

Zipf's Law of Abbreviation-the idea that more frequent symbols in a code are simpler than less frequent ones-has been shown to hold at the level of words in many languages. We tested whether it holds at the level of individual written characters. Character complexity is similar to word length in that it requires more cognitive and motor effort for producing and processing more complex symbols. We built a dataset of character complexity and frequency measures covering 27 different writing systems. According to our data, Zipf's Law of Abbreviation holds for every writing system in our dataset-the more frequent characters have lower degrees of complexity and vice-versa. This result provides further evidence of optimization mechanisms shaping communication systems

Why do some words have more meanings than others? A true neutral model for the meaning-frequency correlation.

The lexica of natural languages are ambiguous, but the de- gree of ambiguity is unequal between words. Some words have more meanings than others. However, the exact prop- erties that favor some words over others when acquiring a new meaning are not very well understood. In recent years, several studies suggested that some words gain more meanings than others based on selection for efficient communication, which could explain the correlation between meaning and frequency discovered by Zipf (Piantadosi, Tily, & Gibson, 2012; Gib- son et al., 2019). The object of this study is to assess the role of selection in the meaning-frequency correlation using a neu- tral model that yields a meaning-frequency correlation without selection pressures. We provide a model where words gain additional meanings through reuse. In the neutral model pre- sented in this paper, words are chosen to be reused at random, independently of their frequency, hence there is no selection mechanism favoring efficient communication. Unlike previous attempts to introduce null models of the meaning-frequency correlation (Caplan, Kodner, & Yang, 2020; Trott & Bergen, 2020), it truly does not rely on selection for frequency. We show that statistical regularities related to ambiguity, such as Zipf’s meaning-frequency correlation, can arise in conditions when words are not undergoing any selective pressures. This model has the additional property of matching word frequency distributions of natural languages. It can provide the baseline against which the presence of selection for efficient communi- cation in natural languages can be assessed

Why do some words have more meanings than others? A true neutral model for the meaning-frequency correlation

The lexica of natural languages are ambiguous, but the degree of ambiguity is unequal between words. Some words have more meanings than others. However, the exact properties that favor some words over others when acquiring a new meaning are not very well understood. In recent years, several studies suggested that some words gain more meanings than others based on selection for efficient communication, which could explain the correlation between meaning and frequency discovered by Zipf (Piantadosi, Tily, & Gibson, 2012; Gibson et al., 2019). The object of this study is to assess the role of selection in the meaning-frequency correlation using a neutral model that yields a meaning-frequency correlation without selection pressures. We provide a model where words gain additional meanings through reuse. In the neutral model presented in this paper, words are chosen to be reused at random, independently of their frequency, hence there is no selection mechanism favoring efficient communication. Unlike previous attempts to introduce null models of the meaning-frequency correlation (Caplan, Kodner, & Yang, 2020; Trott & Bergen, 2020), it truly does not rely on selection for frequency. We show that statistical regularities related to ambiguity, such as Zipf's meaning-frequency correlation, can arise in conditions when words are not undergoing any selective pressures. This model has the additional property of matching word frequency distributions of natural languages. It can provide the baseline against which the presence of selection for efficient communication in natural languages can be assessed

The Tail Wags the Dog: The Far Periphery of the Coordination Environment Manipulates the Photophysical Properties of Heteroleptic Cu(I) Complexes

In this work we show, using the example of a series of [Cu(Xantphos)(N^N)]+ complexes (N^N being substituted 5-phenyl-bipyridine) with different peripheral N^N ligands, that substituents distant from the main action zone can have a significant effect on the physicochemical properties of the system. By using the C≡C bond on the periphery of the coordination environment, three hybrid molecular systems with −Si(CH3)3, −Au(PR3), and −C2HN3(CH2)C10H7 fragments were produced. The Cu(I) complexes thus obtained demonstrate complicated emission behaviour, which was investigated by spectroscopic, electrochemical, and computational methods in order to understand the mechanism of energy transfer. It was found that the −Si(CH3)3 fragment connected to the peripheral C≡C bond changes luminescence to long-lived intra-ligand phosphorescence, in contrast to MLCT phosphorescence or TADF. The obtained results can be used for the design of new materials based on Cu(I) complexes with controlled optoelectronic properties on the molecular level, as well as for the production of hybrid systems

Polynuclear cage-like Au(i) phosphane complexes based on a S2− template: observation of multiple luminescence in coordinated polyaromatic systems

A rational approach to the synthesis of cage-like compounds has been realized to build a new family of sulfido-phosphane Au(i) polynuclear complexes. Ditopic phosphane ligands with an extended aromatic system were used to obtain cage compounds with a clearly determined geometry. Au(i) complexes have been fully characterised in solution using spectroscopy methods, and DFT optimisation of the molecular structure gives additional arguments in favour of the suggested structural patterns. All complexes obtained are luminescent in solution and in the solid state, and display multiple emissions with an unusual combination of two phosphorescence bands and one fluorescence band. DFT calculations show that multiple emissions were mainly determined by IL and metal perturbed IL transitions. The ratio of singlet and triplet emission components depends on the distance between the ligand chromophoric centre and Au(i).This research has been supported by grants of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research 16-33-60109, 14-03-00970 and the Russian Presidential scholarship SP-2534.2016.1. The financial support from the Academy of Finland (grant 268993, I. O. K.) is acknowledged. The work was carried out using equipment of the Analytical Centre for Nano- and Biotechnologies (Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University with financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation); and Centres for Magnetic Resonance, for Optical and Laser Materials Research, for Chemical Analysis and Materials Research, and Computer Centre (Research park of St Petersburg State University).Peer Reviewe

Coinage Metal Complexes Supported by the Tri- and Tetraphosphine Ligands

A series of tri- and tetranuclear phosphine complexes of d¹⁰ metal ions supported by the polydentate ligands, bis­(diphenylphosphinomethyl)­phenylphosphine (<i>PPP</i>) and tris­(diphenylphosphinomethyl)­phosphine (<i>PPPP</i>), were synthesized. All the compounds under study, [AuM₂(<i>PPP</i>)₂]³⁺ (M = Au (<b>1</b>), Cu (<b>2</b>), Ag (<b>3</b>)), [M₄(<i>PPPP</i>)₂]⁴⁺ (M = Ag (<b>4</b>), Au (<b>5</b>)), [AuAg₃(<i>PPPP</i>)₂]⁴⁺ (<b>6</b>), and [Au₂Cu₂(<i>PPPP</i>)₂(NCMe)₄]⁴⁺ (<b>7</b>), were characterized crystallographically. The trinuclear clusters <b>1</b>–<b>3</b> contain a linear metal core, while in the isostructural tetranuclear complexes <b>4</b>–<b>6</b> the metal framework has a plane star-shaped arrangement. Cluster <b>7</b> adopts a structural motif that involves a digold unit bridged by two arms of the <i>PPPP</i> phosphines and decorated two spatially separated Cu^I ions chelated by the remaining P donors. The NMR spectroscopic investigation in DMSO solution revealed the heterometallic clusters <b>2</b>, <b>3</b>, and <b>6</b> are stereochemically nonrigid and undergo reversible metal ions redistribution between several species, accompanied by their solvation–desolvation. The complexes <b>1</b>–<b>3</b> and <b>5</b>–<b>7</b> exhibit room temperature luminescence in the solid state (Φ_em = 6–64%) in the spectral region from 450 to 563 nm. The phosphorescence observed originates from the triplet excited states, determined by the metal cluster-centered d_σ* → p_σ transitions

Universal Dependencies 2.8.1

Universal Dependencies is a project that seeks to develop cross-linguistically consistent treebank annotation for many languages, with the goal of facilitating multilingual parser development, cross-lingual learning, and parsing research from a language typology perspective. The annotation scheme is based on (universal) Stanford dependencies (de Marneffe et al., 2006, 2008, 2014), Google universal part-of-speech tags (Petrov et al., 2012), and the Interset interlingua for morphosyntactic tagsets (Zeman, 2008). Version 2.8.1 fixes a bug in 2.8 where a portion of the Dutch Alpino treebank was accidentally omitted

Universal Dependencies 2.10

Universal Dependencies is a project that seeks to develop cross-linguistically consistent treebank annotation for many languages, with the goal of facilitating multilingual parser development, cross-lingual learning, and parsing research from a language typology perspective. The annotation scheme is based on (universal) Stanford dependencies (de Marneffe et al., 2006, 2008, 2014), Google universal part-of-speech tags (Petrov et al., 2012), and the Interset interlingua for morphosyntactic tagsets (Zeman, 2008)