# modeLing: A Novel Dataset for Testing Linguistic Reasoning in Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.17038 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.17038/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 8 of its 42 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Jun 2024.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning benchmarks and evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-benchmarks-and-evaluation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 8 of 8)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Mistral 7B](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06825/) (2023)
- [Sparks of Artificial General Intelligence: Early experiments with GPT-4](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12712/) (2023)
- [Beyond the Imitation Game: Quantifying and extrapolating the capabilities of language models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.04615/) (2022)
- [Mixtral of Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.04088/) (2024)
- [Gemma: Open Models Based on Gemini Research and Technology](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08295/) (2024)
- [Are Large Pre-Trained Language Models Leaking Your Personal Information?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.12628/) (2022)

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

- [PuzzleWorld: A Benchmark for Multimodal, Open-Ended Reasoning in Puzzlehunts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.06211/) (2025)
- [LingBench++: A Linguistically-Informed Benchmark and Reasoning Framework for Multi-Step and Cross-Cultural Inference with LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.16809/) (2025)
- [UNVEILING: What Makes Linguistics Olympiad Puzzles Tricky for LLMs?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.11260/) (2025)
- [The Gold Medals in an Empty Room: Diagnosing Metalinguistic Reasoning in LLMs with Camlang](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.00425/) (2025)
- [PromptPrism: A Linguistically-Inspired Taxonomy for Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.12592/) (2025)
- [From Rosetta to Match-Up: A Paired Corpus of Linguistic Puzzles with Human and LLM Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13408/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce modeLing, a novel benchmark of Linguistics Olympiad-style puzzles which tests few-shot reasoning in AI systems. Solving these puzzles necessitates inferring aspects of a language's grammatical structure from a small number of examples. Such puzzles provide a natural testbed for language models, as they require compositional generalization and few-shot inductive reasoning. Consisting solely of new puzzles written specifically for this work, modeLing has no risk of appearing in the training data of existing AI systems: this ameliorates the risk of data leakage, a potential confounder for many prior evaluations of reasoning. Evaluating several large open source language models and GPT on our benchmark, we observe non-negligible accuracy, demonstrating few-shot emergent reasoning ability which cannot merely be attributed to shallow memorization. However, imperfect model performance suggests that modeLing can be used to measure further progress in linguistic reasoning.