Function nodes in Chinese syntactic networks

Abstract

Based on two syntactic dependency networks derived from two Chinese treebanks of different registers, a statistical study is conducted regarding word frequency and distributions. We chose three grammatical (function) words as our research objects and analyzed their network features, including degree, out-degree, in-degree, closeness, in-closeness, out-closeness and betweenness. Then we removed these three word nodes from the networks so as to see what consequences may follow in the number of vertices, average degree, average path length, diameter, the number of isolated vertices, domain and density. The results showed that all three function words are central nodes of the Chinese syntactic networks but have different status, since their influence to the overall structure is quite different. The research provides not only a new way for the study on Chinese function words but also a method for examining the influence of node characteristics to a complex network.