The distribution of syntactic dependency distances

Kód výsledku v IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11320%2F26%3AMKQZUFWU" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11320/26:MKQZUFWU - isvavai.cz</a>

Výsledek na webu

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.53482/2025_58_424" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.53482/2025_58_424</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.53482/2025_58_424" target="_blank" >10.53482/2025_58_424</a>

Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

The distribution of syntactic dependency distances

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

The syntactic structure of a sentence can be represented as a graph, where vertices are words and edges indicate syntactic dependencies between them. In this setting, the distance between two linked words is defined as the difference between their positions. Here we wish to contribute to the characterization of the actual distribution of syntactic dependency distances, which has previously been argued to follow a power-law distribution. Here we propose a new model with two exponential regimes in which the probability decay is allowed to change after a break-point. This transition could mirror the transition from the processing of word chunks to higher-level structures. We find that a two-regime model – where the first regime follows either an exponential or a power-law decay – is the most likely one in all 20 languages we considered, independently of sentence length and annotation style. Moreover, the break-point exhibits low variation across languages and averages values of 4-5 words, suggesting that the amount of words that can be simultaneously processed abstracts from the specific language to a high degree. The probability decay slows down after the breakpoint, consistently with a universal chunk-and-pass mechanism. Finally, we give an account of the relation between the best estimated model and the closeness of syntactic dependencies as function of sentence length, according to a recently introduced optimality score. © 2025, International Quantitative Linguistics Association. All rights reserved.

Název v anglickém jazyce

The distribution of syntactic dependency distances

Popis výsledku anglicky

The syntactic structure of a sentence can be represented as a graph, where vertices are words and edges indicate syntactic dependencies between them. In this setting, the distance between two linked words is defined as the difference between their positions. Here we wish to contribute to the characterization of the actual distribution of syntactic dependency distances, which has previously been argued to follow a power-law distribution. Here we propose a new model with two exponential regimes in which the probability decay is allowed to change after a break-point. This transition could mirror the transition from the processing of word chunks to higher-level structures. We find that a two-regime model – where the first regime follows either an exponential or a power-law decay – is the most likely one in all 20 languages we considered, independently of sentence length and annotation style. Moreover, the break-point exhibits low variation across languages and averages values of 4-5 words, suggesting that the amount of words that can be simultaneously processed abstracts from the specific language to a high degree. The probability decay slows down after the breakpoint, consistently with a universal chunk-and-pass mechanism. Finally, we give an account of the relation between the best estimated model and the closeness of syntactic dependencies as function of sentence length, according to a recently introduced optimality score. © 2025, International Quantitative Linguistics Association. All rights reserved.

Druh

J_SC - Článek v periodiku v databázi SCOPUS

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

2025

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

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

Název periodika

Glottometrics

ISSN

1617-8351

e-ISSN

—

Svazek periodika

58

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

2025

Stát vydavatele periodika

US - Spojené státy americké

Počet stran výsledku

60

Strana od-do

35-94

Kód UT WoS článku

—

EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

2-s2.0-105013295380