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MiS Preprint
10/2003
Why verb-initial languages are not frequent
André Grüning
Abstract
In our simulations with simple recurrent networks we demonstrate that small artificial languages are learnt worse or better depending on their basic word order. We show that verb-initial languages are difficult to learn, reflecting the lower frequency of verb-initial natural languages.
We try to go beyond mere simulations proposing two objective mathematical measures to explain our results.