anigbrowl5 hours ago
It's a common problem to get excited about networks, build a large one, and then by stuck with an unapproachable hairball. If you want to explore network structure, consider using tools like quadrilateral simmelian backones which can provide an opinionated look at what matters in the network.
Someone2 hours ago
One could also try to use a different set of definitions better suited to such a visualization.
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary has an appendix called “Defining Vocabulary”. It says:
“In order to make the dictionary definitions easy to understand, we have written them using only the words in the following list.
[…]
Occasionally it has been necessary to use in a definition a word not in the list. When such a word occurs it is shown in SMALL CAPITAL LETTERS.”
I estimate that list has about 3,500 words.
⇒ If you base your network on that dictionary or one carefully constructed like that, the graph could have a central core of about 3,500 nodes with the other words circling around it.
Making a good visualization still would be a challenge, of course.
tomstuart4 hours ago
I had to look this up: https://doi.org/10.7155/jgaa.00370
reubenmorais3 hours ago
This reminds me of the classic "Growing a Language" talk by Guy Steele: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ahvzDzKdB0
avidiax7 hours ago
If you like this, you would probably enjoy Princeton Wordnet. They have unfortunately stopped developing it.
You can still browse it a bit online with some 3rd party sites: https://en-word.net/
jaen22 minutes ago
The page literally credits "Open English Wordnet" (based on it) in the sidebar :)
(the link is broken though, it should be https://github.com/globalwordnet/english-wordnet)
sspehran hour ago
There are some surprises like the word 'r'
breakingcups2 hours ago
It seems broken. The word "knows" only connects to the word "operator"
codeflo2 hours ago
It's likely that "knows" has no separate definition, but is used in some definition of "operator". If so, then "operator" should probably connect to "know", and "knows" shouldn't appear in the graph at all. But calling that edge case "broken" is a bit harsh, I think.
castral2 days ago
It's an interesting visualization for sure, but I don't really know what I can take away from it. Is it useful for something?
h4ch12 days ago
You can look at this as how small sets of a primitive lexicon give rise to a larger, more complex language. At least that's how I interpret it.
rhelz2 days ago
Beautiful! Thank you!
theodpHN3 days ago
Very neat. What software is being used to construct/display the graph?
wyattsellop3 days ago
Glad you like it. NetworkX for creating the graph and the layout; then SigmaJS for displaying it.
readthenotes17 hours ago
Is, be, and the don't show up in search box.
What am I missing?
Cyphase7 hours ago
Other words too, e.g. "from".
My first thought was that the creator used a search library that filters common words by default, but the search code is all in the page and doesn't do that.
My second thought was that the 10k word corpus doesn't include those most common words. But it does.
Then I realized that the creator filtered them out. The page does say "7931 words", and the title here on HN says "10k* most common". The original corpus has exactly 10,000 words.
https://github.com/first20hours/google-10000-english/blob/d0...
The first 21 include all four we've mentioned:
the, of, and, to, a, in, for, is, on, that, by, this, with, i, you, it, not, or, be, are, from
wyattsellop6 hours ago
The reason for this (I should have probably added a note to the site in hindsight), is that WordNet doesn't include definitions for these words in its corpus. This is why the count is less than 10,000: anything that WordNet doesn't have a definition for isn't included. I left a nod to this in the asterisk, but I realise now I didn't explain it anywhere.
From the old Princeton WordNet FAQ page (https://wordnet.princeton.edu/frequently-asked-questions):
> WordNet only contains "open-class words": nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Thus, excluded words include determiners, prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, and particles.
I suppose I could have included them as source nodes (only outgoing), but I think they would have ended up connecting to a whole bunch of definitions, while not providing much in the way of interest.
oxonia3 hours ago
Yet "tc" does?
[deleted]3 days agocollapsed