Processing effort is a poor predictor of cross-linguistic word order frequency
41608Authors
nan
Abstract
AbstractSome have argued that word orders which are more difficult to process should be rarer cross-linguistically. Our current study fails to replicate the results of Maurits, Navarro, and Perfors (2010), who used an entropy-based Uniform Information Density (UID) measure to moderately predict the Greenbergian typology of transitive word orders. We additionally report an inability of three measures of processing difficulty — entropy-based UID, surprisal-based UID, and pointwise mutual information — to correctly predict the correct typological distribution, using transitive constructions from 20 languages in the Universal Dependencies project (version 2.5). However, our conclusions are limited by data sparsity.
Keywords
Full Content
Proceedings of the 24th Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning, pages 245–255 Online, November 19-20, 2020. c⃝2020 Association for Computational Linguistics https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/P17 245 �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`SOU$!!H!$-Rab^cY#Fd -PQR`SJ C!'!$#,D(") D! ! D#'!H!!"$)") !E )!e",# D "# !$- , E D!\%# !_$ N$ ",!- f!$HIKHW! g)E-#E D!]D!%!_$ N$I ",!O])%,-RahbSJY)F!'!$- D! !#$! )%!I FD# $ ,#$ D!$$!# )i D!(#$!%) '# !E H# !E) D!"$!'#,! !)* HW! IG$ ,# #! #E,# #! FD!$! D!'!$H#E)HW! #$!#EI W# ! J]D! !"$ ",! #$! D! !E )!e",# D!'!$( #%!F)$E)$E!$"# !$ D# %) '# !E D!% D!G$ ",# !JV D D!)#,)*# D!'# %)$!$)H !e",## )- )%!D#'!#$ !E%)$! $! ! F)$d D# "$) ! E*G , (OH$)#E,( )I $ !ES '!$ !,("$)")$ )#, ) ("),) #,*$!I j ! (OY#Fd -PQQ`-PQR`c_!Ek! Dd#! #,J- PQRhSJ# #! #$! ,#%!E )!'),'!*$)%F)$E )$E!$ D# #$!%)$!E*G , ( )"$) ! ))$E!$ D# #$!!# !$ )"$) ! J]D!$!*)$!-#F)$E)$I E!$ D# %)$!E*G , )"$) ! D) ,EH!$#$!$ $) I, #,,(JV D D ) !e -L# $ ! #,JOPQRQS# !%" !E ) ! D!&*)$%T*)$I %# ) ! (O&T SD(") D! )!e",# D! E $H )#,"# !$ )* HW! I'!$HI)HW! )I $ ) JL# $ ! #,JOPQRQSOD! !*)$ DLMNS ) $ !E %",G!E ! )*!'! -$#d!# D ") H,!)$E!$)* HW! -'!$H-#E)HW! H( E!'# )*$)%&T E!#,J LMNl $! , D)F!E# ) ! DD$#d *)$fCK#EfKC-#E# ) ! ,)F$#d *)$CKf- ) $#$( ) D!)H !$'!E $) I, *$!j ! (JVD,!LMN !E#! $)"(IH# !E&T %!# $!- D!$!#$!) D!$%!# $! )*"$) ! E*I G , ( D# ) ,EH!#"",!E ) D! E!$,(j ! I ))*FD! D!$,# #! !'),'!*$)%E*G , I )I"$) ! F)$E)$E!$ )!# (I )I"$) ! F)$E )$E!$ J]D "#"!$ D!$!*)$! !!d ) ! D! ,#% D# ,# #! !'),'! D F#(-H( )%"#$ D! "$!E !E"$) ! E*G , ()* D! e") H,! HW! I'!$HI)HW! F)$E)$E!$ J])E) D -F! ! D!*),,)F D$!!%! $ )*"$) ! E*G , (- E!G!E D!*),,)F …
Content truncated to 500 words
Labeled Text
AbstractSome have argued that word orders which are more difficult to process should be rarer cross-linguistically. Our current study fails to replicate the results of Maurits, Navarro, and Perfors (2010), who used an entropy-based Uniform Information Density (UID) measure to moderately predict the Greenbergian typology of transitive word orders. We additionally report an inability of three measures of processing difficulty — entropy-based UID, surprisal-based UID, and pointwise mutual information — to correctly predict the correct typological distribution, using transitive constructions from 20 languages in the Universal Dependencies project (version 2.5). However, our conclusions are limited by data sparsity.
Publication Details
- Paper ID:
- 41608
- Year:
- 2020
- Publication:
- TIPSTER
- Publication Type:
- conf
- DOI:
- nan