Chromatic transitions in the emergence of syntax networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how children's syntax networks evolve during language development, using chromatic number to identify rapid transitions from simple to complex grammar, and compares real data to a null model.

Contribution

It introduces the use of chromatic number to analyze syntax network transitions and links these to syntactic structure theories during language acquisition.

Findings

Chromatic number captures rapid syntactic transitions in development.

Null model shows significant differences from real syntax network growth.

Chromatic classes indicate independent regions related to syntactic incompatibility.

Abstract

The emergence of syntax during childhood is a remarkable example of how complex correlations unfold in nonlinear ways through development. In particular, rapid transitions seem to occur as children reach the age of two, which seems to separate a two-word, tree-like network of syntactic relations among words from a scale-free graphs associated to the adult, complex grammar. Here we explore the evolution of syntax networks through language acquisition using the {\em chromatic number}, which captures the transition and provides a natural link to standard theories on syntactic structures. The data analysis is compared to a null model of network growth dynamics which is shown to display nontrivial and sensible differences. In a more general level, we observe that the chromatic classes define independent regions of the graph, and thus, can be interpreted as the footprints of incompatibility relations, somewhat as opposed to modularity considerations.