Recognizing text genres with simple metrics using discriminant analysis

A simple method for categorizing texts into pre-determined text genre categories using the statistical standard technique of discriminant analysis is demonstrated with application to the Brown corpus. Discriminant analysis makes it possible use a large number of parameters that may be specific for a certain corpus or information stream, and combine them into a small number of functions, with the parameters weighted on basis of how useful they are for discriminating text genres. An application to information retrieval is discussed.