Edward Gibson

All languages. All languages. All languages have short dependencies. You can actually measure that. So an ex-student of mine, this guy is at University of California, Irvine, Richard Futrell did a thing a bunch of years ago now where he looked at all the languages we could look at, which was about 40 initially. And now I think there's about 60 for which there are dependency structures.

All languages. All languages. All languages have short dependencies. You can actually measure that. So an ex-student of mine, this guy is at University of California, Irvine, Richard Futrell did a thing a bunch of years ago now where he looked at all the languages we could look at, which was about 40 initially. And now I think there's about 60 for which there are dependency structures.

All languages. All languages. All languages have short dependencies. You can actually measure that. So an ex-student of mine, this guy is at University of California, Irvine, Richard Futrell did a thing a bunch of years ago now where he looked at all the languages we could look at, which was about 40 initially. And now I think there's about 60 for which there are dependency structures.

So meaning there's got to be like a big text, a bunch of texts, which have been parsed for their dependency structures. And there's about 60 of those which have been parsed that way. And for all of those, what he did was take any sentence in one of those languages and you can do the dependency structure and then start at the root. We're talking about dependency structures. That's pretty easy now.

So meaning there's got to be like a big text, a bunch of texts, which have been parsed for their dependency structures. And there's about 60 of those which have been parsed that way. And for all of those, what he did was take any sentence in one of those languages and you can do the dependency structure and then start at the root. We're talking about dependency structures. That's pretty easy now.

So meaning there's got to be like a big text, a bunch of texts, which have been parsed for their dependency structures. And there's about 60 of those which have been parsed that way. And for all of those, what he did was take any sentence in one of those languages and you can do the dependency structure and then start at the root. We're talking about dependency structures. That's pretty easy now.

And he's trying to figure out what a control way you might say the same sentence is in that language. And so he's just like, all right, there's a root. And it has, let's say as a sentence is, let's go back to, you know, two dogs entered the room. So entered is the root. And entered has two dependents. It's got dogs and it has room, okay? And what he does is like, let's scramble that order.

And he's trying to figure out what a control way you might say the same sentence is in that language. And so he's just like, all right, there's a root. And it has, let's say as a sentence is, let's go back to, you know, two dogs entered the room. So entered is the root. And entered has two dependents. It's got dogs and it has room, okay? And what he does is like, let's scramble that order.

And he's trying to figure out what a control way you might say the same sentence is in that language. And so he's just like, all right, there's a root. And it has, let's say as a sentence is, let's go back to, you know, two dogs entered the room. So entered is the root. And entered has two dependents. It's got dogs and it has room, okay? And what he does is like, let's scramble that order.

That's three things, the root and the head and the two dependents and into some random order, just random. And then just do that for all the dependents down the tree. So now look, do it for the and whatever was two and dogs and for, and room. And that's, you know, that's not a, it's a very short sentence.

That's three things, the root and the head and the two dependents and into some random order, just random. And then just do that for all the dependents down the tree. So now look, do it for the and whatever was two and dogs and for, and room. And that's, you know, that's not a, it's a very short sentence.

That's three things, the root and the head and the two dependents and into some random order, just random. And then just do that for all the dependents down the tree. So now look, do it for the and whatever was two and dogs and for, and room. And that's, you know, that's not a, it's a very short sentence.

When sentences get longer and you have more dependence, there's more scrambling that's possible. And what he found was, so that's one, you can figure out one scrambling for that sentence. He did this like a hundred times for every sentence in every one of these texts, every corpus.

When sentences get longer and you have more dependence, there's more scrambling that's possible. And what he found was, so that's one, you can figure out one scrambling for that sentence. He did this like a hundred times for every sentence in every one of these texts, every corpus.

When sentences get longer and you have more dependence, there's more scrambling that's possible. And what he found was, so that's one, you can figure out one scrambling for that sentence. He did this like a hundred times for every sentence in every one of these texts, every corpus.

And then he just compared the dependency lengths in those random scramblings to what actually happened, what the English or the French or the German was in the original language, or Chinese or whatever, all these like 80, no, 60 languages, okay? And the dependency lengths are always shorter in the real language compared to this kind of a control.

And then he just compared the dependency lengths in those random scramblings to what actually happened, what the English or the French or the German was in the original language, or Chinese or whatever, all these like 80, no, 60 languages, okay? And the dependency lengths are always shorter in the real language compared to this kind of a control.

And then he just compared the dependency lengths in those random scramblings to what actually happened, what the English or the French or the German was in the original language, or Chinese or whatever, all these like 80, no, 60 languages, okay? And the dependency lengths are always shorter in the real language compared to this kind of a control.

And there's another, it's a little more rigid, his control. So... The way I described it, you could have crossed dependencies. By scrambling that way, you could scramble in any way at all. Languages don't do that. They tend not to cross dependencies very much. So the dependency structure, they tend to keep things non-crossed.

And there's another, it's a little more rigid, his control. So... The way I described it, you could have crossed dependencies. By scrambling that way, you could scramble in any way at all. Languages don't do that. They tend not to cross dependencies very much. So the dependency structure, they tend to keep things non-crossed.