On the nature of long-range letter correlations in texts

The origin of long-range letter correlations in natural texts is studied using random walk analysis and Jensen-Shannon divergence. It is concluded that they result from slow variations in letter frequency distribution, which are a consequence of slow variations in lexical composition within the text. These correlations are preserved by random letter shuffling within a moving window. As such, they do reflect structural properties of the text, but in a very indirect manner.