Menzerath's law, also known as the Menzerath–Altmann law (named after Paul Menzerath and Gabriel Altmann), is a linguistic law according to which the increase of the size of a linguistic construct results in a decrease of the size of its constituents, and vice versa. For example, the longer a sentence (measured in terms of the number of clauses), the shorter the clauses (measured in terms of the number of words), or: the longer a word (in syllables or morphs), the shorter the syllables or morphs in sounds. == History == In the 19th century, Eduard Sievers observed that vowels in short words are...