Are crossing dependencies really scarce?

DOI10.1016/J.PHYSA.2017.10.048MaRDI QIDQ2148382zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Ramon Ferrer-i-Cancho, C. Gómez-Rodríguez, Juan Luis Esteban

Publication date 23 June 2022

Published in Physica A (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.08324, http://hdl.handle.net/2117/112359

zbMATH Keywords

crossingsbaselinesspatial networkssyntactic dependency trees

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Applications of graph theory (05C90) Small world graphs, complex networks (graph-theoretic aspects) (05C82)

Abstract: The syntactic structure of a sentence can be modelled as a tree, where vertices correspond to words and edges indicate syntactic dependencies. It has been claimed recurrently that the number of edge crossings in real sentences is small. However, a baseline or null hypothesis has been lacking. Here we quantify the amount of crossings of real sentences and compare it to the predictions of a series of baselines. We conclude that crossings are really scarce in real sentences. Their scarcity is unexpected by the hubiness of the trees. Indeed, real sentences are close to linear trees, where the potential number of crossings is maximized.

Recommendations

• Descriptions of cross-serial dependencies
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 910356
• Characterizing discontinuity in constituent treebanks
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2230907
• Defining dependencies (and constituents)

Cites work

• A critical point for random graphs with a given degree sequence
• Complex networks. Structure, robustness and function.
• Constrained Markovian dynamics of random graphs
• Enumeration of noncrossing trees on a circle
• Handbook of Linguistic Annotation
• Networks. An introduction.
• The Random Walk Construction of Uniform Spanning Trees and Uniform Labelled Trees
• The Structure and Function of Complex Networks
• The asymptotic number of labeled graphs with given degree sequences
• The scaling of the minimum sum of edge lengths in uniformly random trees

Cited in

(3)

• Edge crossings in random linear arrangements
• Bounds of the sum of edge lengths in linear arrangements of trees
• Reappraising the distribution of the number of edge crossings of graphs on a sphere

This page was built for publication: Are crossing dependencies really scarce?

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2148382)