Use of "that" for enumerate concepts
Hi everyone! I'm finding difficult to differentiate if the parragraph of a book I'm reading (Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing, by Minning and Schütze) is refering to just one concept, or to actually two. It says the next:

"Other laws of Zipf’s include that there is an inverse relationship between the frequency of words and their length, that the greater the frequency of a word or morpheme, the greater the number of different permutations (roughly, compounds andmorphologically complex forms) it will be used in".

I can't decide if there is just one concept, whit is related to the "relationship between frecuency of words and their length"; or in fact there is another concept when it says "that the greater the frequency of a word or morpheme, the greater the number of different permutations".

I think my problem is related to the use of "that", as I think it could be used to enumerate things (but not sure).

I'd trully appreciate your help!

Gabriel

Question

Use of "that" for enumerate concepts
Hi everyone! I'm finding difficult to differentiate if the parragraph of a book I'm reading (Foundations of Statistical Natural Language Processing, by Minning and Schütze) is refering to just one concept, or to actually two. It says the next:

"Other laws of Zipf’s include that there is an inverse relationship between the frequency of words and their length, that the greater the frequency of a word or morpheme, the greater the number of different permutations (roughly, compounds andmorphologically complex forms) it will be used in".

I can't decide if there is just one concept, whit is related to the "relationship between frecuency of words and their length"; or in fact there is another concept when it says "that the greater the frequency of a word or morpheme, the greater the number of different permutations".

I think my problem is related to the use of "that", as I think it could be used to enumerate things (but not sure).

I'd trully appreciate your help!

Gabriel

Answer

It's a confusing sentence, Gabriel.  I had to read it a couple of times myself.

The sentence is one long thought, with each clause clarifying the previous.  It could be written as follows to be more clear:

Other laws of Zipf’s include the fact that that there is an inverse relationship between the frequency of words and their length, meaning that it will be used in a greater number of different permutations (roughly, compounds and morphologically complex forms) the more frequently the word or morpheme is used.

Answer

Hi Nanren, thanks for your time in reading my question and answering it.

I have analysed again the sentences, and both your and Joe's interpretations, and I've arrived to a more meaningful understanding of the concepts by having them as separate ones (as you proposed). I expanded my thoughts in my answer to Joe.

Thanks again for your dedication, and have a nice week!

Answer

Sorry, Joe. 
.
I do not find Joe's answer clearer and my guess, incorrect. What is "it" in "meaning that it will be used"

Yes, I agree, two laws are mentioned, if related.
Laws that state A is related to B and laws that state C is related to E
So, I agree, I think "that" is used to introduce the next item in an enumeration :)
laws that suggest 
an inverse relationship between the frequency of words and their length
and that suggest
that the greater the frequency of a word (then), the greater the number of different permutations it will be used in.

So, I group these into two laws, rather than a law and an equivalent statement.
They clearly are related. Probably the reason the same guy came up with them.

Answers · 4

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