The role of syntax in complex networks: Local and global importance of verbs in a syntactic dependency network

Radek Čech, Ján Mačutek and Zdeněk Žabokrtský

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2011, vol. 390, issue 20, 3614-3623

Abstract: Syntax of natural language has been the focus of linguistics for decades. The complex network theory, being one of new research tools, opens new perspectives on syntax properties of the language. Despite numerous partial achievements, some fundamental problems remain unsolved. Specifically, although statistical properties typical for complex networks can be observed in all syntactic networks, the impact of syntax itself on these properties is still unclear. The aim of the present study is to shed more light on the role of syntax in the syntactic network structure. In particular, we concentrate on the impact of the syntactic function of a verb in the sentence on the complex network structure. Verbs play the decisive role in the sentence structure (“local” importance). From this fact we hypothesize the importance of verbs in the complex network (“global” importance). The importance of verb in the complex network is assessed by the number of links which are directed from the node representing verb to other nodes in the network. Six languages (Catalan, Czech, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, Portuguese) were used for testing the hypothesis.

Keywords: Syntactic network; Complex network; Verb (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:390:y:2011:i:20:p:3614-3623

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2011.05.027

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