ISSN: 2534-5192 (electronic) – 2681-8566 (print)

◀ Jan Kučera▲ ProceedingsPaul D. Ueda ▶



ISBN: 978-2-487055-12-4
e-ISBN: 978-2-487055-13-1

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Graphic Complexity and Orthographic Neighbors: Observations based on Telugu Writing System
Vasanta Duggirala; Raju Surampudi Bapi; Soham G. Korade
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Abstract. The present study was designed (1) to examine aspects of graph and grapheme complexity associated with Telugu akṣaras} in the script that is currently in use, and (2) to estimate quantitatively, the impact of grapheme complexity on the Orthographic Neighborhood (ON) size in 200 two-syllabic words that were part of the 1000 most frequently occurring printed words listed in a Telugu-text corpus. For all the graphs and graphemes in the Telugu script, four aspects of their visual complexity, viz., Perimetric Complexity (PC), Disconnected Components (DC), Connected Points (CP), and Simple Features (SF) were measured. With the help of an algorithm, ONs for the 200 bi-syllabic words were generated by substituting entire akṣara or by altering its sub-components without changing the position of the akṣara in the target word. The lexical status of each ON was verified using an online dictionary. Statistical analysis of the results revealed that the complexity values for the PC and DC components were strongly negatively correlated with ON, suggesting that greater visual complexity of graphemes is associated with fewer ONs in Telugu. The implications of these results are discussed briefly, and some topics for future research are mentioned in this paper.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36824/2024-graf-dugg


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   TITLE = {Reading in {Tamil}: A~more alphabetic and less syllabic akshara-based orthography},
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   TITLE = {More matters of typology: Alphasyllabaries, abugidas and related vowelled segmentaries},
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   TITLE = {Writing Systems and their Use: An Overview of Grapholinguistics},
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   TITLE = {Visual orthographic complexity of aksharas and eye movements in reading: A study in {Kannada} alphasyllabary},
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   BOOKTITLE = {The Indic Scripts: Paleographic and Linguistic Perspectives},
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   BOOKTITLE = {Corpus Linguistics: Study Material for Diploma in Computer Applications in Indian Languages},
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@ARTICLE{xiong2021,
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@ARTICLE{zhao2012,
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Vasanta Duggirala; Raju Surampudi Bapi; Soham G. Korade (2024), “Graphic Complexity and Orthographic Neighbors: Observations based on Telugu Writing System,” in Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2024 (Yannis Haralambous, Ed.), Grapholinguistics and Its Applications, Vol. 12, Brest: Fluxus Editions, 443–468.


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