minimum sample

Jonathan Robie jonathan at texcel.no
Thu Mar 4 13:12:05 EST 1999


I think it is important to distinguish sampling statistics from descriptive
statistics. If you are looking at individual observations from a universe
that is unbounded or too large to study, you use sampling statistics to
extrapolate from a sample. If you are trying to describe a well-bounded
universe, it's better to use descriptive statistics.

To use a homely example, suppose you had 10 marbles in a jar, and you
wanted to know how many of them are black. Since you can just count them,
you'd be best looking at all 10 marbles. Although it is possible to sample
5 and extrapolate from there, your estimate will not be particularly accurate.

In general, I'm suspicious when sampling statistics are used to assert
probabilities of interpretation for linguistic phenomena, especially when
the corpus is well defined, reasonably small, and eminently explorable with
tools like Gramcord. Suppose I were to assert that the English word "run"
refers to a way of moving 75% of the time. That doesn't mean that there is
a 75% probability that it has this meaning in a sentence like "she has a
run in her stocking". There are many factors that affect meaning in
context, and if you try to make statistical projections about meaning, it's
pretty likely that there may be other factors that you did not consider
when drawing your sample.

Jonathan
___________________________________________________________________________

Jonathan Robie		jwrobie at mindspring.com

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