# The distribution of syntactic dependency distances

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.14620 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.14620/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Nov 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [The optimality of syntactic dependency distances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.15342/) (2020)
- [Anti dependency distance minimization in short sequences. A graph theoretic approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05765/) (2019)
- [The risks of mixing dependency lengths from sequences of different length](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1304.3841/) (2013)
- [The Linear Arrangement Library. A new tool for research on syntactic dependency structures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.02512/) (2021)
- [A correction on Shiloach's algorithm for minimum linear arrangement of trees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1511.01061/) (2015)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [The optimal placement of the head in the noun phrase. The case of demonstrative, numeral, adjective and noun](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10311/) (2024)
- [The exponential distribution of the order of demonstrative, numeral, adjective and noun](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.06342/) (2025)
- [On the feasibility of dependency parsing of non-human sequences without a gold standard. Is evaluation possible in other species?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06542/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The syntactic structure of a sentence can be represented as a graph, where vertices are words and edges indicate syntactic dependencies between them. In this setting, the distance between two linked words is defined as the difference between their positions. Here we wish to contribute to the characterization of the actual distribution of syntactic dependency distances, which has previously been argued to follow a power-law distribution. Here we propose a new model with two exponential regimes in which the probability decay is allowed to change after a break-point. This transition could mirror the transition from the processing of word chunks to higher-level structures. We find that a two-regime model - where the first regime follows either an exponential or a power-law decay - is the most likely one in all 20 languages we considered, independently of sentence length and annotation style. Moreover, the break-point exhibits low variation across languages and averages values of 4-5 words, suggesting that the amount of words that can be simultaneously processed abstracts from the specific language to a high degree. The probability decay slows down after the breakpoint, consistently with a universal chunk-and-pass mechanism. Finally, we give an account of the relation between the best estimated model and the closeness of syntactic dependencies as function of sentence length, according to a recently introduced optimality score.