Faust
By Johan Wolfgang von Goethe 1832
344 pages
Beware deals with the Devil and those who make them.
Information Theory Shows Why We Have Only Three Lightness Terms – Baddeley & Attewell (2009)
Quantifies the amount of uncertainty in the distribution of lightness across various environments, the perceptual and memory systems for lightness, and the distribution of lightness terms in English language. The entropy is then used to calculate the amount of information required to convey information about lightness. The research finds that in modern interior environments 3 color terms are required while in natural woodland environments only 2 would be required. Uses search results as one method to obtain term frequency. Results are similar to BNC but differ enough to warrant a systematic investigation of relative and absolute frequency estimates from search results.
Color Naming Reflects Optimal Partitions of Color Space – Regier, Kay & Khetarpal (2006)
Use data from pre-industrial societies on color naming systems to argue that naming systems reflect locally optimal divisions of the color space based on the number of color words. Optimality is measured as the degree to witch a category includes similar colors and excludes dissimilar colors based on the CIELAB representation of color space. Use sampling to produce optimal color categories and demonstrate their similarity to attested natural language systems. Show that rotating the color space reduces optimality for most natural language color systems. Does not have an account of why there is so much variability in optimality across color language systems. Proposes that current systems can be viewed as points of change from one optimum to another based on language history and contact.
