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# Recursive LSTM Tree Representation for Arc-Standard Transition-Based Dependency Parsing

**Authors:** Mohab Elkaref and [Bernd Bohnet](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/authors/bernd-bohnet/) · **Year:** 2019 · **Venue:** Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Universal Dependencies (UDW, SyntaxFest 2019) **Link:** [aclanthology.org/W19-8012](https://aclanthology.org/W19-8012/) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

[**0** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W2995862823) openalex-snapshot · 2026-10-14[Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Universal Dependencies (UDW, SyntaxFest 2019)](https://aclanthology.org/volumes/W19-80/)[licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

- [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/W19-8012/)
- [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/W19-8012.pdf)
- [DOI 10.18653/v1/w19-8012](https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/w19-8012)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2995862823)

**Authors (2)**

1. [Mohab Elkaref](https://openalex.org/A5000890126) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/23533202) · h 5 · 76 citations · 23 works
2. [Bernd Bohnet](https://openalex.org/A5066427994) [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/1678747) · h 26 · 4245 citations · 103 works

Citations and author metrics from openalex-snapshot (2026-10-14); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

The paper encodes a partial dependency tree as one dense vector, built by applying LSTMs recursively to each head and its dependents. A greedy arc-standard parser then needs only the vectors of the top two stack items. The authors say this is the smallest feature set published for arc-standard parsers, and that its accuracy is competitive. On the CoNLL 2018 English EWT test set the scores are UAS 82.86 and LAS 80.18, with punctuation included. The recursive vectors encode structure well, and the authors note that treating dependents as unordered costs about 1% accuracy.

## Ideas

- I1. `en/src/parse.rs`: compare the current feature set with a two-item stack feature set, using the same perceptron, on EWT dev. Report LAS and training seconds, and run twice before any claim.
- I2. Dependent order: the paper finds that losing the order of dependents costs about 1%. Add the left-to-right order of a head's dependents to its feature in `en/src/parse.rs`, and measure LAS on EWT dev.
- I3. Scoring convention: report LAS with and without punctuation on EWT test, because the paper's scores include punctuation. `en ud-eval` should print both, so that comparisons are like with like.

## For Mova

The code is `en/src/parse.rs`; the commands are `en parse-eval` and `en ud-eval`; the chapter is [21. The simple clause](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/en/21-clause-structure/). Mova's current EWT LAS of 79.8 excludes punctuation, so compare only like with like. EWT is CC BY-SA and may be used for training. The model here is neural, so only the feature-set and order ideas are ported.

Topics: [Dependency parsing](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/topics/dependency-parsing/)

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.18653/v1/w19-8012](https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/w19-8012)

```
@inproceedings{elkaref2019recursive,
  title = {{Recursive LSTM Tree Representation for Arc-Standard Transition-Based Dependency Parsing}},
  author = {Elkaref, Mohab and Bohnet, Bernd},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Universal Dependencies (UDW, SyntaxFest 2019)},
  year = {2019},
  doi = {10.18653/v1/w19-8012},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/w19-8012}
}
```

- [← previous Dependency Parsing for Spoken Dialog Systems](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/ud-2019-davidson-dependency-parsing-spoken-dialog-systems/)
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- [↑ back to English](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/papers/en/)

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