mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

What Kind of Language is Easy to Language-Model Under Curriculum Learning?

arXiv 2604.26844 ↗First posted 29 Apr 2026cs.CLcited by 0

Not on the map. Why?

Abstract (arXiv)

Many of the thousands of attested languages share common configurations of features, creating a spectrum from typologically very rare (e.g., object-verb-subject word order) or impossible languages to very common combinations of features (e.g., subject-object-verb word order). One central question is under what conditions such typological tendencies can be predicted, and specifically whether the learning bias of language models (LMs) is sufficient to reproduce such patterns. In this study, we add one dimensionality to such analysis -- the learning scenario for LMs -- to explore its interaction with the inductive bias of LMs. Specifically, as a first study, we examine the effect of curriculum learning (CL), as a developmentally motivated learning scenario, i.e., starting with simpler sentences rather than randomly-ordered input. We expand existing LM-based exploration (El-Naggar et al., 2025a,b) with a simple CL variant and find that CL substantially impacts the apparent inductive bias of LMs.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 14 of its 37 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Apr 2026.

Builds on

14 of 37 references.

References · 14

  1. 2019fairseq: A Fast, Extensible Toolkit for Sequence Modelingcited by 1,486
  2. 2022Neural Networks and the Chomsky Hierarchycited by 214
  3. 2018On the Practical Computational Power of Finite Precision RNNs for Language Recognitioncited by 117
  4. 2024Why do language models perform worse for morphologically complex languages?cited by 62
  5. 2018Are All Languages Equally Hard to Language-Model?cited by 53
  6. 2019What Kind of Language Is Hard to Language-Model?cited by 50
  7. 2019LSTM Networks Can Perform Dynamic Countingcited by 45
  8. 2021Examining the Inductive Bias of Neural Language Models with Artificial Languagescited by 40
  9. 2024What Languages are Easy to Language-Model? A Perspective from Learning Probabilistic Regular Languagescited by 20
  10. 2024Emergent Word Order Universals from Cognitively-Motivated Language Modelscited by 11
  11. 2025Developmentally-plausible Working Memory Shapes a Critical Period for Language Acquisitioncited by 10
  12. 2022Exploring the Long-Term Generalization of Counting Behavior in RNNscited by 7
2 more
  1. 2025Which Word Orders Facilitate Length Generalization in LMs? An Investigation with GCG-Based Artificial Languagescited by 4
  2. 2023Theoretical Conditions and Empirical Failure of Bracket Counting on Long Sequences with Linear Recurrent Networkscited by 3

Built on by

Not cited yet.