Quantitative linguistics

One of the historical sources consists of applications of combinatorics to linguistic matters,[3] another one is based on elementary statistical studies, which can be found under the header colometry and stichometry.

One has to bear in mind in this context that these laws are of stochastic nature; they are not observed in every single case (this would be neither necessary nor possible); they rather determine the probabilities of the events or proportions under study.

This situation does not differ from that in the natural sciences, which have since long abandoned the old deterministic and causal views of the world and replaced them by statistical/probabilistic models.

Among the main linguistic laws proposed by various authors, the following can be highlighted: [6] The study of poetic and non-poetic styles can be based on statistical methods.

Moreover, it is possible to conduct corresponding investigations on the basis of the specific forms (parameters) that language laws take in texts of different styles.