Towards a theory of word order

Abstract

Liu et al's reflections on the term dependency length minimization [1] may look anecdotal but they are not. By the turn of the 20th century, we put forward a "Euclidean distance minimization" hypothesis for the distance between syntactically linked words and various word order phenomena [2,3] 1 . Later on, pressure from language researchers forced us to replace it with terms such as "online memory minimization" [5] because our initial formulation was obscure to them. Recently, researchers from all over the world have been granted to use the term "dependency length minimization" by the popes thanks to whom [6] came into light. Although "length" is a particular case of distance in this context and thus downsizes our original formulation, it is still abstract enough to allow for progress in theoretical research [7] and frees us from the heavy burden of contingency, i.e. the real implementation of the principle (at present believed to result from decay and interference as reviewed by Liu et al) or the current view of the architecture of memory [8,9]. Our position is grounded on the high predictive power of that principle per se [5].However, the lower generality of the term "dependency length" can be anEmail address: rferrericancho@cs.upc.edu (R. Ferrer-i-Cancho) 1 These were pieces of our PhD thesis [4] that were submitted for publication before its defense. Preprint submitted to ElsevierJune 16, 2017 obstacle to the construction of a fully-fledged scientific field [10]. First, distance minimization allows one to unify pressure to reduce dependency lengths (still distances) with constraints on word order variation and change arising from a principle of swap distance minimization [11]. "Distance minimization" has therefore a higher predictive power and greater utility in a general theory of communication. Second, distance provides a "formal background" or a "specific background" (following Bunge's terminology [10]) from physics or mathematics such as the theory of geographical or spatial networks (where the syntactic dependency structures of sentences are particular cases in one dimension) [12,13] or the theory for the distance between like elements in sequences (where the couple of words involved in a syntactic dependency are particular cases of like elements) [14]. Therefore we agree with [1] on the convenience of the term distance.A less flashy contribution of [6] has been promoting the need of controlling for sentence length (as a predictor of dependency length in their mixed-effects regression model) in research on dependency length minimization, an important methodological issue [15] that was addressed early [2] but neglected in subsequent research (e.g., [16,17,18]).Liu et al focus their review on the fundamental principle of dependency length minimization but understanding how it interacts with other principles is vital. In 2009, we put forward another fundamental word order principle, i.e. predictability maximization, and presented a theoretical framework culminating in a conflict between dependency lengt...

Anti Dependency Distance Minimization in Short Sequences. A Graph Theoretic Approach

“…Distance minimization in word order (Ferrer-i-Cancho, 2014) presents itself as the syntactic dependency distance minimization principle (Ferrer-i-Cancho, 2004) and the swap distance minimization principle (Ferrer-i-Cancho, 2016). Critical characteristics of a compact but general theory of language are to specify (a) the cognitive origins of its principles (b) the cross linguistic support of its principles, and (c) the separation between principles and manifestations.…”

“…In the domain of word order, there is massive evidence that the distance between words in a syntactic dependency representation of the sentence is minimized (), a consequence of the syntactic dependency distance minimization principle (Ferrer-i-Cancho, 2004). A general principle of distance minimization in word order, which instantiates as syntactic dependency distance minimization, has been proposed (Ferrer-i-Cancho, 2014). Furthermore, the action of distance minimization in languages goes beyond the common notion of physical distance.…”

Swap distance minimization in SOV languages. Cognitive and mathematical foundations

“…In the domain of word order, there is massive evidence that the distance between words in a syntactic dependency representation of the sentence is minimized (Ferrer-i-Cancho et al, 2022;Futrell et al, 2015;Liu, 2008), a consequence of the syntactic dependency distance minimization principle (Ferrer-i-Cancho, 2004). A general principle of distance minimization in word order, which instantiates as syntactic dependency distance minimization, has been proposed (Ferrer-i-Cancho, 2014). Furthermore, the action of distance minimization in languages goes beyond the common notion of physical distance.…”

The sum of edge lengths in random linear arrangements

“…The length of an edge is defined as the metric distance between the nodes that form it (see for a discussion of the suitability of the term length [3]). A fundamental implication of space on networks is that links have a cost that depends on their length [1].…”