Function Nodes in Chinese Syntactic Networks

Abstract

Abstract. Based on two syntactic dependency networks derived from two Chinese treebanks of different registers, a statistical study is conducted regarding word frequency and distributions. We chose three grammatical (function) words as our research objects and analyzed their network features, including degree, out-degree, in-degree, closeness, in-closeness, out-closeness and betweenness. Then we removed these three word nodes from the networks so as to see what consequences may follow in the number of vertices, average degree, average path length, diameter, the number of isolated vertices, domain and density. The results showed that all three function words are central nodes of the Chinese syntactic networks but have different status, since their influence to the overall structure is quite different. The research provides not only a new way for the study on Chinese function words but also a method for examining the influence of node characteristics to a complex network.

Syntactic Networks of Interlanguage Across L2 Modalities and Proficiency Levels

“…Second, in terms of syntactic connectivity, highly connected words tend not to be interconnected (Ferrer i Cancho et al, 2004 ). In Chinese, function words, such as prepositions, conjunctions, and auxiliary and modal particles, are the most connected word types that do not form syntactic dependency among themselves and only act as intermediate words in a syntactic network (Chen and Liu, 2016 ). Chen and Liu ( 2016 ) found that the number of de (“of”) and zai (“in”) in writing production of CSL learners is higher than that in oral production.…”

“…In Chinese, function words, such as prepositions, conjunctions, and auxiliary and modal particles, are the most connected word types that do not form syntactic dependency among themselves and only act as intermediate words in a syntactic network (Chen and Liu, 2016 ). Chen and Liu ( 2016 ) found that the number of de (“of”) and zai (“in”) in writing production of CSL learners is higher than that in oral production. In addition, degrees of de are higher than those of zai , which is also found in native the production of Chinese speakers (Chen and Liu, 2016 ).…”

“…Chen and Liu ( 2016 ) found that the number of de (“of”) and zai (“in”) in writing production of CSL learners is higher than that in oral production. In addition, degrees of de are higher than those of zai , which is also found in native the production of Chinese speakers (Chen and Liu, 2016 ). For example, the total number of de in interlanguage's writing is 1.67 times that of in the oral corpus.…”

“…It is another important parameter to consider. For Chinese syntactic networks, function words are likely to be the central nodes of a network (Chen and Liu, 2016 ). The calculation formula is (Liu, 2017 ).…”

The role of syntax in the formation of scale-free language networks

“…Diverse words lead to diverse nodes, which provides a new perspective for investigating the formation of the scale-free feature. Reference [21] compares the characteristics of three central nodes in syntactic networks and explains their difference in frequency and syntactic importance. After examining the local and global properties of verb nodes, ref.…”