Open AccessLexiCAL: A calculator for lexical variables
Author(s) -
Qian Wen Chee,
Keng Ji Chow,
Winston D. Goh,
Melvin J. Yap
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0250891
Subject(s) - computer science , python (programming language) , calculator , scripting language , executable , natural language processing , range (aeronautics) , lexical choice , lexical item , artificial intelligence , lexical density , programming language , materials science , composite material , operating system
While a number of tools have been developed for researchers to compute the lexical characteristics of words, extant resources are limited in their useability and functionality. Specifically, some tools require users to have some prior knowledge of some aspects of the applications, and not all tools allow users to specify their own corpora. Additionally, current tools are also limited in terms of the range of metrics that they can compute. To address these methodological gaps, this article introduces LexiCAL, a fast, simple, and intuitive calculator for lexical variables. Specifically, LexiCAL is a standalone executable that provides options for users to calculate a range of theoretically influential surface, orthographic, phonological, and phonographic metrics for any alphabetic language, using any user-specified input, corpus file, and phonetic system. LexiCAL also comes with a set of well-documented Python scripts for each metric, that can be reproduced and/or modified for other research purposes.