arXiv:2511.16693cs.CL2025-11被引 1

揭示多语言大模型如何通过隐含结构区分语言,而非表面文字特征。

How Language Directions Align with Token Geometry in Multilingual LLMs

  • 分析六款多语言模型268层的词元几何分布与语言方向对齐
  • 首层语言信息分离度提升76.4%,后续基本保持线性可分
  • 中文训练模型的语言方向匹配度是英文模型的4.21倍,反映数据偏见

多语言大模型在多种语言上表现优异,但其内部表示空间中语言信息的组织方式及各层演化机制尚不清晰。本研究对六款多语言大模型(共268个Transformer层)开展系统探针分析,结合线性与非线性探针及新型词元-语言对齐分析,量化语言编码的逐层动态与几何结构。结果表明:语言信息在第一层即显著分离(从第0层到第1层提升76.4±8.2个百分点),之后几乎始终保持线性可分。进一步发现,语言方向与词表嵌入的对齐程度高度依赖训练数据的语言构成:包含中文的模型达到ZH Match@Peak 16.43%,而英语主导模型仅3.90%,呈现4.21倍的结构性偏差。这说明多语言模型区分语言并非基于表层书写特征,而是由训练语料塑造的潜在表示结构决定。研究为数据组合策略与多语言表示公平性提供了实践启示。所有代码与分析脚本已公开于:https://github.com/thisiskorea/How-Language-Directions-Align-with-Token-Geometry-in-Multilingual-LLMs。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Multilingual LLMs demonstrate strong performance across diverse languages, yet there has been limited systematic analysis of how language information is structured within their internal representation space and how it emerges across layers. We conduct a comprehensive probing study on six multilingual LLMs, covering all 268 transformer layers, using linear and nonlinear probes together with a new Token--Language Alignment analysis to quantify the layer-wise dynamics and geometric structure of language encoding. Our results show that language information becomes sharply separated in the first transformer block (+76.4$\pm$8.2 percentage points from Layer 0 to 1) and remains almost fully linearly separable throughout model depth. We further find that the alignment between language directions and vocabulary embeddings is strongly tied to the language composition of the training data. Notably, Chinese-inclusive models achieve a ZH Match@Peak of 16.43\%, whereas English-centric models achieve only 3.90\%, revealing a 4.21$\times$ structural imprinting effect. These findings indicate that multilingual LLMs distinguish languages not by surface script features but by latent representational structures shaped by the training corpus. Our analysis provides practical insights for data composition strategies and fairness in multilingual representation learning. All code and analysis scripts are publicly available at: https://github.com/thisiskorea/How-Language-Directions-Align-with-Token-Geometry-in-Multilingual-LLMs.

多语言模型表示学习语言对齐几何结构

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