Technique used to identify autorship: not traditional editorial insight, but computational analysis (...) With mutual influence muddying the picture, how can computers tell the difference between Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Marlowe and Shakespeare drawing on one another? According to the editors of the “New Oxford”, the answer lies in “function words”. These are words like “to” or “a” that supply the grammatical mechanics of a sentence. The theory goes that all writers unconsciously use these words in distinctive ways. (...) As a result, function words supposedly betray a writer’s identity, even when they’re trying to write like someone else. By analysing how a writer uses function words, computers can ostensibly identify their unique linguistic fingerprint.
The Economist (Why literature is the ultimate big data challenge)
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