Richard Futrell
Biographic Data
| ID | 3842905 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Richard Futrell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Richard |
| FAMILY NAME | Futrell |
| SIGNATURE | FUTRELL R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Irvine |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4964-9524 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Toward an information-theoretic model of morphological fusion based on an efficient tradeoff of memory and surprisal
Inflectional morphology refers to the mapping from grammatical information to surface forms, which are typically realized as morphemes . This mapping often exhibits fusion , where several abstract features are expressed in a single morpheme that cannot be decomposed into meaningful parts. Here, we discuss crosslinguistic generalizations of morphological fusion. We argue that fusion reflects principles of efficient processing, as formalized by the…
Strategic resource allocation in memory encoding
How is the limited capacity of working memory efficiently used to support human linguistic behaviors? In this paper, we propose Strategic Resource Allocation (SRA) as an efficiency principle for memory encoding in sentence processing. The idea is that working memory resources are dynamically and strategically allocated to prioritize novel and unexpected information. From a resource-rational perspective, we argue that SRA is the principled solutio…
Informativity enhances memory robustness against interference in sentence comprehension
Language comprehension has been argued to be expectation-based, with more predictable linguistic units being easier to process. However, as a communicative tool, language is often used to deliver messages that are novel and informative, suggesting the necessity of some cognitive mechanisms handling less predictable but more informative content. This paper proposes strategic memory allocation as one such mechanism. Although less predictable lingui…
Using Computational Models to Test Syntactic Learnability
We studied the learnability of English filler-gap dependencies and the “island” constraints on them by assessing the generalizations made by autoregressive (incremental) language models that use deep learning to predict the next word given preceding context. Using factorial tests inspired by experimental psycholinguistics, we found that models acquire not only the basic contingency between fillers and gaps, but also the unboundedness and hierarch…
An information-theoretic approach to the typology of spatial demonstratives
Grammatical cues to subjecthood are redundant in a majority of simple clauses across languages
Information Theory as a Bridge Between Language Function and Language Form
Formal and functional theories of language seem disparate, because formal theories answer the question of what a language is, while functional theories answer the question of what functions it serves. We argue that information theory provides a bridge between these two approaches, via a principle of minimization of complexity under constraints. Synthesizing recent work, we show how information-theoretic characterizations of functional complexity …
A verb-frame frequency account of constraints on long-distance dependencies in English
Learning Phonotactics in a Differentiable Framework of Subregular Languages
Phonotactic constraints have been argued to beregular, meaning that they can be represented usingfinite-state automata (Heinz, 2018); furthermore, they have been argued to occupy a even more restrictedregion of the regular language class known as the subregular hierarchy (Rogers & Pullum, 2011). Ourcontribution is to present a simple model of phonotactic learning from positive evidence. Our approach isbased on probabilistic finite-state automata …
Assessing Corpus Evidence for Formal and Psycholinguistic Constraints on Nonprojectivity
Formal constraints on crossing dependencies have played a large role in research on the formal complexity of natural language grammars and parsing. Here we ask whether the apparent evidence for constraints on crossing dependencies in treebanks might arise because of independent constraints on trees, such as low arity and dependency length minimization. We address this question using two sets of experiments. In Experiment 1, we compare the distrib…
Validity, Reliability, and Significance
What's new? A comprehension bias in favor of informativity
Do dependency lengths explain constraints on crossing dependencies
In syntactic dependency trees, when arcs are drawn from syntactic heads to dependents, they rarely cross. Constraints on these crossing dependencies are critical for determining the syntactic properties of human language, because they define the position of natural language in formal language hierarchies. We study whether the apparent constraints on crossing syntactic dependencies in natural language might be explained by constraints on dependenc…
Lossy‐Context Surprisal
A key component of research on human sentence processing is to characterize the processing difficulty associated with the comprehension of words in context. Models that explain and predict this difficulty can be broadly divided into two kinds, expectation‐based and memory‐based. In this work, we present a new model of incremental sentence processing difficulty that unifies and extends key features of both kinds of models. Our model, lossy‐context…
Maze Made Easy
Communication efficiency of color naming across languages provides a new framework for the evolution of color terms
Dependency locality as an explanatory principle for word order
Dependency locality as an explanatory principle for word order
This work focuses on explaining both grammatical universals of word order and quantitative word-order preferences in usage by means of a simple efficiency principle: dependency locality. In its simplest form, dependency locality holds that words linked in a syntactic dependency (any head–dependent relationship) should be close in linear order. We give large-scale corpus evidence that dependency locality predicts word order in both grammar and usa…
How Efficiency Shapes Human Language
A meta-analysis of syntactic priming in language production
Large-scale evidence of dependency length minimization in 37 languages
Significance We provide the first large-scale, quantitative, cross-linguistic evidence for a universal syntactic property of languages: that dependency lengths are shorter than chance. Our work supports long-standing ideas that speakers prefer word orders with short dependency lengths and that languages do not enforce word orders with long dependency lengths. Dependency length minimization is well motivated because it allows for more efficient pa…
Dependency locality as an explanatory principle for word order
This work focuses on explaining both grammatical universals of word order and quantitative word-order preferences in usage by means of a simple efficiency principle: dependency locality. In its simplest form, dependency locality holds that words linked in a syntactic dependency (any head–dependent relationship) should be close in linear order. We give large-scale corpus evidence that dependency locality predicts word order in both grammar and usa…
Large-scale evidence of dependency length minimization in 37 languages
Significance We provide the first large-scale, quantitative, cross-linguistic evidence for a universal syntactic property of languages: that dependency lengths are shorter than chance. Our work supports long-standing ideas that speakers prefer word orders with short dependency lengths and that languages do not enforce word orders with long dependency lengths. Dependency length minimization is well motivated because it allows for more efficient pa…
A meta-analysis of syntactic priming in language production
How Efficiency Shapes Human Language
Lossy‐Context Surprisal
A key component of research on human sentence processing is to characterize the processing difficulty associated with the comprehension of words in context. Models that explain and predict this difficulty can be broadly divided into two kinds, expectation‐based and memory‐based. In this work, we present a new model of incremental sentence processing difficulty that unifies and extends key features of both kinds of models. Our model, lossy‐context…
Maze Made Easy
Communication efficiency of color naming across languages provides a new framework for the evolution of color terms
Dependency locality as an explanatory principle for word order
Dependency locality as an explanatory principle for word order
This work focuses on explaining both grammatical universals of word order and quantitative word-order preferences in usage by means of a simple efficiency principle: dependency locality. In its simplest form, dependency locality holds that words linked in a syntactic dependency (any head–dependent relationship) should be close in linear order. We give large-scale corpus evidence that dependency locality predicts word order in both grammar and usa…
What's new? A comprehension bias in favor of informativity
Do dependency lengths explain constraints on crossing dependencies
In syntactic dependency trees, when arcs are drawn from syntactic heads to dependents, they rarely cross. Constraints on these crossing dependencies are critical for determining the syntactic properties of human language, because they define the position of natural language in formal language hierarchies. We study whether the apparent constraints on crossing syntactic dependencies in natural language might be explained by constraints on dependenc…
Information Theory as a Bridge Between Language Function and Language Form
Formal and functional theories of language seem disparate, because formal theories answer the question of what a language is, while functional theories answer the question of what functions it serves. We argue that information theory provides a bridge between these two approaches, via a principle of minimization of complexity under constraints. Synthesizing recent work, we show how information-theoretic characterizations of functional complexity …
A verb-frame frequency account of constraints on long-distance dependencies in English
Learning Phonotactics in a Differentiable Framework of Subregular Languages
Phonotactic constraints have been argued to beregular, meaning that they can be represented usingfinite-state automata (Heinz, 2018); furthermore, they have been argued to occupy a even more restrictedregion of the regular language class known as the subregular hierarchy (Rogers & Pullum, 2011). Ourcontribution is to present a simple model of phonotactic learning from positive evidence. Our approach isbased on probabilistic finite-state automata …
Assessing Corpus Evidence for Formal and Psycholinguistic Constraints on Nonprojectivity
Formal constraints on crossing dependencies have played a large role in research on the formal complexity of natural language grammars and parsing. Here we ask whether the apparent evidence for constraints on crossing dependencies in treebanks might arise because of independent constraints on trees, such as low arity and dependency length minimization. We address this question using two sets of experiments. In Experiment 1, we compare the distrib…
Validity, Reliability, and Significance
An information-theoretic approach to the typology of spatial demonstratives
Grammatical cues to subjecthood are redundant in a majority of simple clauses across languages
Using Computational Models to Test Syntactic Learnability
We studied the learnability of English filler-gap dependencies and the “island” constraints on them by assessing the generalizations made by autoregressive (incremental) language models that use deep learning to predict the next word given preceding context. Using factorial tests inspired by experimental psycholinguistics, we found that models acquire not only the basic contingency between fillers and gaps, but also the unboundedness and hierarch…
Informativity enhances memory robustness against interference in sentence comprehension
Language comprehension has been argued to be expectation-based, with more predictable linguistic units being easier to process. However, as a communicative tool, language is often used to deliver messages that are novel and informative, suggesting the necessity of some cognitive mechanisms handling less predictable but more informative content. This paper proposes strategic memory allocation as one such mechanism. Although less predictable lingui…
Toward an information-theoretic model of morphological fusion based on an efficient tradeoff of memory and surprisal
Inflectional morphology refers to the mapping from grammatical information to surface forms, which are typically realized as morphemes . This mapping often exhibits fusion , where several abstract features are expressed in a single morpheme that cannot be decomposed into meaningful parts. Here, we discuss crosslinguistic generalizations of morphological fusion. We argue that fusion reflects principles of efficient processing, as formalized by the…
Strategic resource allocation in memory encoding
How is the limited capacity of working memory efficiently used to support human linguistic behaviors? In this paper, we propose Strategic Resource Allocation (SRA) as an efficiency principle for memory encoding in sentence processing. The idea is that working memory resources are dynamically and strategically allocated to prioritize novel and unexpected information. From a resource-rational perspective, we argue that SRA is the principled solutio…
Computer Science (17 works) · Linguistics (14 works) · Artificial Intelligence (11 works) · Natural language processing (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism (9 works) · Artificial Intelligence (8 works) · Cognitive psychology (8 works) · Natural Language Processing Techniques (8 works) · Sentence (7 works)