On Zipf's law
- 1 September 1975
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Journal of Applied Probability
- Vol. 12 (3) , 425-434
- https://doi.org/10.2307/3212857
Abstract
A Zipf's law is a probability distribution on the positive integers which decays algebraically. Such laws describe (approximately) a large class of phenomena. We formulate a model for such phenomena and, in terms of our model, give necessary and sufficient conditions for a Zipf's law to hold.Keywords
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