“You can often use mathematical methods and apply them directly to the study of language. I’ll give you one simple example. Consider animals—which animal has the closest relationship to human beings? You can probably narrow it down just by thinking: cow, horse, dog, pig. But which one is the most important to the way that people live? What do you think?” “Dog,” I say. Yin smiles; the eyebrows dance. “That’s your guess,” he says. “But how can you tell for certain? One method is to analyze writing through statistics and frequency studies. This is something that we did during the 1950s. We
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