[CaCL] Dependency length: English and German

[Rajakrishnan Rajkumar]

Hi all,

Following up Peter's comments on German, here is Gildea and Temperley on
dependency length effects on English and German:

http://theory.esm.rochester.edu/temperley/papers/gildea-temperley-cs10.pdf


              "We extract the dependencies from natural language text and
reorder the words in such away as to minimize dependency
length. Comparing the original text with these optimal
linearizations(and also with random linearizations) reveals
the degree to which natural language minimizes depen-
dency length. Tests on English data show that English shows a strong
effect of DLM, with dependency length much closer to optimal than to
random; the optimal English grammar also has many specific features in
common with English. In German, too, dependency length is significantly
less
than random, but the effect is much weaker than in English. We conclude by
speculating about some possible reasons for this difference between
English and German."

Raja