Syntax is from Mars while Semantics from Venus! Insights from Spectral Analysis of Distributional Similarity Networks

TL;DR

This paper uses spectral analysis to compare the global topologies of syntactic and semantic distributional similarity networks in English, revealing distinct structural differences that reflect their linguistic functions.

Contribution

It provides a novel spectral analysis approach to uncover structural differences between syntactic and semantic networks in language.

Findings

Syntactic network exhibits hierarchical structure with strong communities.

Semantic network has tightly knit communities and a large core.

Distinct topologies reflect different linguistic roles.

Abstract

We study the global topology of the syntactic and semantic distributional similarity networks for English through the technique of spectral analysis. We observe that while the syntactic network has a hierarchical structure with strong communities and their mixtures, the semantic network has several tightly knit communities along with a large core without any such well-defined community structure.