#shadow-distributions

Shadow Distributions Reveal Pragmatic Meaning in Suppressed Tokens (Derrida)

Does the suppressed part of a language model's output distribution (the non-argmax tokens) carry pragmatic and social meaning that the chosen tokens don't?

• Euphemism and register shifts amplify maximally in the shadow (2.3-2.5x). 'Let go' vs 'fired' differ modestly on the sur…
• Irony amplifies 1.66x — the literal meaning persists in the shadow distribution even when the model outputs the ironic i…