Characterisation of Philippine languages and their connector words with network analysis

Abstract

We characterise Filipino, Cebuano, Bicolano, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, and Kapampangan using the properties derived from word co-occurrence networks of Genesis and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We also generate connector words in these languages and demonstrate that their removal from a network increases its diameter and average shortest path length while decreasing its clustering coefficient. In doing so, we show that this method for generating connector words is consistent across Philippine languages.