Euclidean distance between syntactically linked words
Open accessAbstract
We study the Euclidean distance between syntactically linked words in sentences. The average distance is significantly small and is a very slowly growing function of sentence length. We consider two nonexcluding hypotheses: (a) the average distance is minimized and (b) the average distance is constrained. Support for (a) comes from the significantly small average distance real sentences achieve. The strength of the minimization hypothesis decreases with the length of the sentence. Support for (b) comes from the very slow growth of the average distance versus sentence length. Furthermore, (b) predicts, under ideal conditions, an exponential distribution of the distance between linked words, a trend that can be identified in real sentences.
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Human language dependencies tend to be much shorter than expected by chance (dependency length minimization).
“It has been observed in human language that dependencies tend to be much shorter than expected by chance, a phenomenon known as dependency length minimization (Ferrer-i-Cancho 2004; Futrell et al. 2015).”
From Contrasting Linguistic Patterns in Human and LLM-Generated News Text (2024) · cites this paper as Ferrer-i-Cancho 2004
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How Efficiency Shapes Human Language
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Contrasting Linguistic Patterns in Human and LLM-Generated News Text
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- Authors
- Ferrer i Cancho, R.
- Venue
- Physical Review E
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2004-11-30
- Volume
- 70
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 056135-056135
- ISSN
- 1539-3755 (ISSN-L)
- 1550-2376
- OpenAlex
- W1984940486
- Cited by
- 212
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 14 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 10 · 2014: 7 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 35
- FWCI
- 25.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Physical Review E (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UPCommons institutional repository (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- RECERCAT (Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Network Analysis Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Algorithms and Data Compression
- Keywords
- syntactic distance, sentence length, word order, exponential distribution, syntactic structure, language statistics
- MeSH terms
- Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing, Terminology as Topic, Pattern Recognition, Automated, Semantics, Statistics as Topic, Linear Models, Vocabulary, Controlled
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