Probing LLMs for Syntactic Structure Beyond Universal Dependencies: A Minimalist Phase Account in English
We show that LLMs encode syntactic distinctions not present in the Universal Dependencies (UD) tree distances that structural probes are trained to recover. On English wh-movement stimuli, we measure the probe distance between an embedded subject and its verb, whose UD tree distance is invariant across conditions. That distance is shorter than baseline when the embedded clause is finite and longer when it is infinitival -- a within-clause sign asymmetry present in all 13 models across four families we test, at a majority of layers. No account based on UD distance, linear order, or monotone structural complexity can produce a sign reversal, while Minimalist phase theory can. Holding the ma...
| Authors | Yuanhao Chen, Peter Chin |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 26 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 17 July 2026 |
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