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| Hauptverfasser: | , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| Online-Zugang: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03902 |
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| _version_ | 1866908393138028544 |
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| author | Tsipidi, Eleftheria Kiegeland, Samuel Nowak, Franz Xu, Tianyang Wilcox, Ethan Warstadt, Alex Cotterell, Ryan Giulianelli, Mario |
| author_facet | Tsipidi, Eleftheria Kiegeland, Samuel Nowak, Franz Xu, Tianyang Wilcox, Ethan Warstadt, Alex Cotterell, Ryan Giulianelli, Mario |
| contents | The uniform information density (UID) hypothesis proposes that speakers aim to distribute information evenly throughout a text, balancing production effort and listener comprehension difficulty. However, language typically does not maintain a strictly uniform information rate; instead, it fluctuates around a global average. These fluctuations are often explained by factors such as syntactic constraints, stylistic choices, or audience design. In this work, we explore an alternative perspective: that these fluctuations may be influenced by an implicit linguistic pressure towards periodicity, where the information rate oscillates at regular intervals, potentially across multiple frequencies simultaneously. We apply harmonic regression and introduce a novel extension called time scaling to detect and test for such periodicity in information contours. Analyzing texts in English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Basque, and Brazilian Portuguese, we find consistent evidence of periodic patterns in information rate. Many dominant frequencies align with discourse structure, suggesting these oscillations reflect meaningful linguistic organization. Beyond highlighting the connection between information rate and discourse structure, our approach offers a general framework for uncovering structural pressures at various levels of linguistic granularity. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_03902 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Harmonic Structure of Information Contours Tsipidi, Eleftheria Kiegeland, Samuel Nowak, Franz Xu, Tianyang Wilcox, Ethan Warstadt, Alex Cotterell, Ryan Giulianelli, Mario Computation and Language The uniform information density (UID) hypothesis proposes that speakers aim to distribute information evenly throughout a text, balancing production effort and listener comprehension difficulty. However, language typically does not maintain a strictly uniform information rate; instead, it fluctuates around a global average. These fluctuations are often explained by factors such as syntactic constraints, stylistic choices, or audience design. In this work, we explore an alternative perspective: that these fluctuations may be influenced by an implicit linguistic pressure towards periodicity, where the information rate oscillates at regular intervals, potentially across multiple frequencies simultaneously. We apply harmonic regression and introduce a novel extension called time scaling to detect and test for such periodicity in information contours. Analyzing texts in English, Spanish, German, Dutch, Basque, and Brazilian Portuguese, we find consistent evidence of periodic patterns in information rate. Many dominant frequencies align with discourse structure, suggesting these oscillations reflect meaningful linguistic organization. Beyond highlighting the connection between information rate and discourse structure, our approach offers a general framework for uncovering structural pressures at various levels of linguistic granularity. |
| title | The Harmonic Structure of Information Contours |
| topic | Computation and Language |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.03902 |