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Nature 395, 269-272 (17 September 1998) | doi:10.1038/26212; Received 30 March 1998; Accepted 25 June 1998 Dynamic topography, plate driving forces and the African superswell Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni1,2 and Paul G. Silver1

Nature 179, 595 (16 March 1957); doi:10.1038/179595a0 Distribution of Word Frequencies I. J. GOOD 25 Scott House, Princess Elizabeth Way, Cheltenham. THE purpose of this communication is to explain, in terms of the theory of information, the implications of the Zipf distribution of word frequencies1. The distribution is formally identical with the Pareto income and Willis taxonomic distributions, but the present discussion is restricted to word frequencies. The discussion resembles that of Mandelbrot2 but is simpler. The discussion by Parker-Rhodes and Joyce3 also resembles Mandelbrot's, but is fallacious.

Letters to Nature Nature 178, 1308 (08 December 1956); doi:10.1038/1781308a0 A Theory of Word-Frequency Distribution A. F. PARKER-RHODES & T. JOYCE Cambridge Language Research Unit, 20 Millington Road, Cambridge. THE object of this communication is to show that a certain remarkably simple experimental relation governing word-frequencies in language can be explained by a simple model of the process of searching for information, about each word heard or read, in the memory of words employed in the language faculty.