The Index of Contingency : a Critique

The index of contingency of Becker et al. is not a satisfactory measure of redundancy since (1) the measure of reconstitution against which it was validated does not co-vary with noun repetitions in all circumstances. (2) The assumption that sentence meanings are basically carried by nouns produces anomalies in the comparative judgement of passages with large amounts of noun repetition and minimal verb repetition and passages with large amounts of verb repetition and minimal noun repetition. It is suggested that for much moderately redundant English the index seems to work because it co-varies with other aspects of sentence complexity. Becker and Carroll's view of the relationship between interest of a passage and the contingency of sentences within that passage is questioned.