The book presents methods for the objective analysis of poetic language. Common objects of literary studies such as rhythm, semantic explications, interpretation and personal impressions are avoided. Only those properties of poetic texts are taken into account that could be quantified. The major chapters contain the analysis of phonic phenomena (frequency, euphony, assonance, alliteration, aggregation, rhyme), word properties (aspects of frequency, length, richness, word classes, sequences of word properties, characterisations). The synergetic control cycle is the result of the study of mutual links between properties. For all methods both statistical tests (evaluation, comparison), theoretical derivations (models), and examples are presented. The book is dedicated to the work of the famous Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu whose complete work was analysed, which made detailed illustrations of the method possible. The methods can be used mutatis mutandis for any language and text. It is the first comprehensive quantitative analysis of a poetic work.

The present book finds and collects absolutely new aspects of word frequency. First, eminent characteristics (such as the h-point, first used in scientometrics, the k-, m-, and n-points) are introduced - it can be shown that the geometry of word frequency is fundamentally based on them. Furthermore, various indicators of text properties are proposed for the first time, such as thematic concentration, autosemantic text compactness, autosemantic density, etc. In detail, the autosemantic structure of a given text is evaluated by means of a graph representation and its properties (according to a problem from network research). Special emphasis is given to the part-of-speech differentiation, which plays a significant role in stylistics. On the basis of a general theory, which has been developed especially for linguistic research, problems of the frequency structure of texts with respect to word occurrence are investigated and discussed in detail. Methodologically, specific reference is made to synergetic linguistics, including some exemplary analyses, showing that there are points of contact with this field. A separate chapter is dedicated to within-sentence word position; this issue considers grammar as well as language genesis; another chapter is dedicated to the type-token ratio, discussing all established methods and their relevance for word frequency analysis. All methods presented in the book are statistically tested; to this end, some new tests have been developed. All procedures and calculations are conducted for 20 languages, ranging from Polynesia, Indonesia, India, and Europe to a North American Indian language. The broad distribution of the data and texts from all genres allows generalizations with respect to language typology.