ON SENTENCE- LENGTH AS A STATISTICAL CHARACTERISTIC OF STYLE IN PROSE: WITH APPLICATION TO TWO CASES OF DISPUTED AUTHORSHIP

ONE element of style which seems to be characteristic of an author, in so far as can be judged from general impressions, is the length of his sentences. This author develops his thought in long, complex and wandering periods: that finds sufficient for his purpose a sequence of sentences that are brief, clear and perspicuous. Since the length of a sentence can be readily measured, for practical purposes, by the number of words, it occurred to me that it would be of interest to subject this impression to statistical investigation. In carrying out the investigation, I met with more difficulties than I had foreseen. There are two terms used above: (1) Sentence, (2) Word. What is a sentence? What is a word, or what for present purposes is to be regarded as a word? Sentence. Let me cite the New English Dictionary: