In this paper I will report the result of a quantitative analysis of the dynamics of the constituent elements of Japanese terminology . In Japanese technical terms , the linguistic contribution of morphemes greatly differ according to their types of origin . To analyse this aspect , a quantitative method is applied , which can properly characterise the dynamic nature of morphemes in terminology on the basis of a small sample . In computational linguistics , the interest in terminological applications such as automatic term extraction is growing , and many studies use the quantitative information ( cf . Kageura & Umino , 1996 ) . However , the basic quantitative nature of terminological structure , which is essential for terminological theory and applications , has not yet been exploited . The static quantitative descriptions are not sufficient , as there are terms which do not appear in the sample . So it is crucial to establish some models , by which the terminological structure beyond the sample size can be properly described . In Japanese terminology , the roles of morphemes are different according to their types of origin , i.e. the morphemes borrowed mainly from Western languages ( borrowed morphemes ) and the native morphemes including Chineseorigined morphemes which are the majority . There are some quantitative studies ( Ishii , 1987 ; Nomura & Ishii , 1989 ) , but they only treat the static nature of the sample . Located in the intersection of these two backgrounds , the aim of the present study is twofold , i.e. ( 1 ) to introduce a quantitative framework in which the dynamic nature of terminology can be described , and to examine its theoretical validity , and ( 2 ) to describe the quantitative dynamics of morphemes as a ' mass ' in Japanese terminology , with reference to the types of origin . Using the LNRE models , we have succesfully analysed the dynamic nature of the morphemes in Japanese terminology . As the majority of the terminological data is located in the LNRE zone , it is important to use the statistical framework which allows for the LNRE characteristics . The LNRE models give the suitable means . We are currently extending our research to integrating the quantitative nature of morphological distributions to the qualitative mode ] of term formation , by taking into account the po-sitional and combinatorial nature of morphemes and the distributions of term length .
Static quantitative descriptions are not sufficient to analyse Japanese terminology because of the dynamic nature of samples calling for a method beyond the sample size.
They apply a quantitative method which can characterise the dynamic nature of morphemes using a small sample of Japanese terminology.
They show that the method can successfully analyze the dynamic nature of the morphemes in Japanese terminology with suitable means.