That's Optional: A Contemporary Exploration of "that" Omission in English Subordinate Clauses

TL;DR

This paper explores how the principle of uniform information density influences the optional omission of 'that' in English subordinate clauses, using large language models and entropy to analyze syntactic reduction.

Contribution

It extends previous research by applying UID principles with entropy measures to a larger corpus and modern language models for syntactic reduction analysis.

Findings

UID influences 'that' omission in subordinate clauses

Large language models effectively estimate information uniformity

Entropy-based measures reveal patterns in syntactic reduction

Abstract

The Uniform Information Density (UID) hypothesis posits that speakers optimize the communicative properties of their utterances by avoiding spikes in information, thereby maintaining a relatively uniform information profile over time. This paper investigates the impact of UID principles on syntactic reduction, specifically focusing on the optional omission of the connector "that" in English subordinate clauses. Building upon previous research, we extend our investigation to a larger corpus of written English, utilize contemporary large language models (LLMs) and extend the information-uniformity principles by the notion of entropy, to estimate the UID manifestations in the usecase of syntactic reduction choices.