Topology of Syntax Networks across Languages
It addresses the problem of understanding syntactic structures across languages for linguistics and network science, but appears incremental as it builds on earlier studies by expanding data and methods.
This thesis analyzes syntax networks across multiple languages by increasing the number of languages and properties considered, and uses a novel network analysis to cluster words into topological communities and study their properties and Part of Speech, aiming to discover universally preserved structural patterns.
Syntax connects words to each other in very specific ways. Two words are syntactically connected if they depend directly on each other. Syntactic connections usually happen within a sentence. Gathering all those connection across several sentences gives birth to syntax networks. Earlier studies in the field have analysed the structure and properties of syntax networks trying to find clusters/phylogenies of languages that share similar network features. The results obtained in those studies will be put to test in this thesis by increasing both the number of languages and the number of properties considered in the analysis. Besides that, language networks of particular languages will be inspected in depth by means of a novel network analysis [25]. Words (nodes of the network) will be clustered into topological communities whose members share similar features. The properties of each of these communities will be thoroughly studied along with the Part of Speech (grammatical class) of each word. Results across different languages will also be compared in an attempt to discover universally preserved structural patterns across syntax networks.