Using Letter Positional Probabilities to Assess Word Complexity

arXiv:2404.07768v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Word complexity is defined in a number of different ways. Psycholinguistic, morphological and lexical proxies are often used. Human ratings are also used. The problem here is that these proxies do not measure complexity directly, and human ratings are subject to subjective bias. In this study we contend that some form of 'latent complexity' can be approximated by using samples of simple and complex words. We use a sample of 'simple' words from primary school …

abstract arxiv bias complexity cs.cl human proxies ratings study type word