Memory limitations are hidden in grammar

Kód výsledku v IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11320%2F22%3AW859L5IU" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11320/22:W859L5IU - isvavai.cz</a>

Výsledek na webu

<a href="https://glottometrics.iqla.org/397-memory-limitations-are-hidden-in-grammar/" target="_blank" >https://glottometrics.iqla.org/397-memory-limitations-are-hidden-in-grammar/</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.53482/2022_52_397" target="_blank" >10.53482/2022_52_397</a>

Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

Memory limitations are hidden in grammar

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

The ability to produce and understand an unlimited number of different sentences is a hallmark of human language. Linguists have sought to define the essence of this generative capacity using formal grammars that describe the syntactic dependencies between constituents, independent of the computational limitations of the human brain. Here, we evaluate this independence assumption by sampling sentences uniformly from the space of possible syntactic structures. We find that the average dependency distance between syntactically related words, a proxy for memory limitations, is less than expected by chance in a collection of state-of-the-art classes of dependency grammars. Our findings indicate that memory limitations have permeated grammatical descriptions, suggesting that it may be impossible to build a parsimonious theory of human linguistic productivity independent of non-linguistic cognitive constraints.

Název v anglickém jazyce

Memory limitations are hidden in grammar

Popis výsledku anglicky

The ability to produce and understand an unlimited number of different sentences is a hallmark of human language. Linguists have sought to define the essence of this generative capacity using formal grammars that describe the syntactic dependencies between constituents, independent of the computational limitations of the human brain. Here, we evaluate this independence assumption by sampling sentences uniformly from the space of possible syntactic structures. We find that the average dependency distance between syntactically related words, a proxy for memory limitations, is less than expected by chance in a collection of state-of-the-art classes of dependency grammars. Our findings indicate that memory limitations have permeated grammatical descriptions, suggesting that it may be impossible to build a parsimonious theory of human linguistic productivity independent of non-linguistic cognitive constraints.

Druh

J_imp - Článek v periodiku v databázi Web of Science

CEP obor

—

OECD FORD obor

10201 - Computer sciences, information science, bioinformathics (hardware development to be 2.2, social aspect to be 5.8)

Projekt

—

Návaznosti

—

Rok uplatnění

2022

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Název periodika

Glottometrics

ISSN

2625-8226

e-ISSN

1099-1263

Svazek periodika

—

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

52

Stát vydavatele periodika

US - Spojené státy americké

Počet stran výsledku

26

Strana od-do

39-64

Kód UT WoS článku

000828871700003

EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

2-s2.0-85134841751