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<Paper uid="P06-2017">
  <Title>Sydney, July 2006. c(c)2006 Association for Computational Linguistics Analysis and Synthesis of the Distribution of Consonants over Languages: A Complex Network Approach</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="abstr">
    <SectionTitle>
Abstract
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Cross-linguistic similarities are reflected by the speech sound systems of languages all over the world. In this work we try to model such similarities observed in the consonant inventories, through a complex bipartite network. We present a systematic study of some of the appealing features of these inventories with the help of the bipartite network. An important observation is that the occurrence of consonants follows a two regime power law distribution.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> We find that the consonant inventory size distribution together with the principle of preferential attachment are the main reasons behind the emergence of such a two regime behavior. In order to further support our explanation we present a synthesis model for this network based on the general theory of preferential attachment.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>