Wilson, Andrew (2016) Continuous modelling of verse lengths in Welsh and Gaelic metrical psalmody. In: Issues in Quantitative Linguistics 4 :. Studies in Quantitative Linguistics . RAM-Verlag, Lüdenscheid, pp. 228-236. ISBN 9783942303446
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Abstract
Twenty 17th century metrical psalms (ten in Welsh and ten in Scottish Gaelic) were used to investigate the suitability of the Zipf-Alekseev function for modelling verse lengths in these Celtic languages. Good fits were obtained for both languages; however, the parameter c was always negligible, hence future work might consider using the simple power function, if this proves to be the case more generally. Future work needs to look at a broader sample of authors, dates, genres, etc. in order to arrive at a full synergetic model for verse lengths in Welsh and Scottish Gaelic.