The placement of the head that maximizes predictability: An information theoretic approach
The minimization of the length of syntactic dependencies is a well-established principle of word order and the basis of a mathematical theory of word order. Here we complete that theory from the perspective of information theory, adding a competing word order principle: the maximization of predictab...
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| Format: | article |
| Publication Date: | 2017 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repository: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Language: | English |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/108830 |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/108830 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Computational linguistics Information theory Compression Gesture Hilberg’s law Word order Lingüística computacional Informació, Teoria de la Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Intel·ligència artificial::Llenguatge natural |
| Summary: | The minimization of the length of syntactic dependencies is a well-established principle of word order and the basis of a mathematical theory of word order. Here we complete that theory from the perspective of information theory, adding a competing word order principle: the maximization of predictability of a target element. These two principles are in conflict: to maximize the predictability of the head, the head should appear last, which maximizes the costs with respect to dependency length minimization. The implications of such a broad theoretical framework to understand the optimality, diversity and evolution of the six possible orderings of subject, object and verb, are reviewed. |
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