arXiv · 2601.16629
Typologically Informed Parameter Aggregation
Abstract
Massively multilingual language models enable cross-lingual generalization but underperform on low-resource and unseen languages. While adapter-based fine-tuning offers a parameter-efficient solution, training language-specific adapters at scale remains costly. We introduce Typologically Informed Parameter Aggregation (TIPA), a training-free method that constructs proxy language adapters by aggregating existing ones, weighted by typological similarity. Integrated into the MAD-X framework, these proxies enable zero-shot cross-lingual transfer without additional training. We evaluate TIPA on five NLP tasks and over 230 languages. TIPA consistently outperforms or matches baselines such as English-only fine-tuning or selecting the typologically closest language adapter. We see the largest gains for languages lacking dedicated adapters. Our results demonstrate that typologically informed aggregation provides a viable alternative to language-specific modules without any training needed.
Explore related subjects
Keep this discovery
Stef Accou, Wessel Poelman. 2026-01-23. Typologically Informed Parameter Aggregation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.16629
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.