# Human languages order information efficiently

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.02823 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1510.02823/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 9 Oct 2015.

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [A Cross-Linguistic Pressure for Uniform Information Density in Word Order](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03734/) (2023)
- [Crosslinguistic word order variation reflects evolutionary pressures of dependency and information locality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.04239/) (2022)
- [Discourse Context Predictability Effects in Hindi Word Order](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13940/) (2022)
- [Dual Mechanism Priming Effects in Hindi Word Order](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.13938/) (2022)
- [Is Structure Dependence Shaped for Efficient Communication?: A Case Study on Coordination](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10556/) (2024)
- [What Does MMLU Actually Measure? A Psychometric Audit of Difficulty Structure in Aggregate Benchmark Scores](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.09372/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Most languages use the relative order between words to encode meaning relations. Languages differ, however, in what orders they use and how these orders are mapped onto different meanings. We test the hypothesis that, despite these differences, human languages might constitute different `solutions' to common pressures of language use. Using Monte Carlo simulations over data from five languages, we find that their word orders are efficient for processing in terms of both dependency length and local lexical probability. This suggests that biases originating in how the brain understands language strongly constrain how human languages change over generations.