--- title: "Théo Desbordes — author profile and papers" description: "Théo Desbordes, University of Geneva: 2 papers on Elamur Research (2019–2023), h-index 7 — affiliations, topics, co-authors and who cites them in our…" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/theo-desbordes/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/theo-desbordes/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [authors](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/) / Théo Desbordes # Théo Desbordes 2 papers on this site · 2019–2023 current affiliation [University of Geneva](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-geneva/), Geneva, Switzerland; [Athena Research and Innovation Center In Information Communication & Knowledge Technologies](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/labs/athena-research-and-innovation-center-in-information-communication-knowledge/), Marousi, Greece; [Université Paris 8](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/universite-paris-8/), Paris, France Théo Desbordes has 2 papers on this site, in 2019–2023, most of them on [Language models & pretraining](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/), [Syntax & grammar formalisms](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/syntax-grammar/); often with [Dieuwke Hupkes](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/dieuwke-hupkes/), [German Kruszewski](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/german-kruszewski/), [Marco Baroni](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/marco-baroni/). [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/A5028116010) · [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0681-5051) · [**h-index 7**](https://openalex.org/authors/A5028116010) · [17 works](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5028116010) · [843 citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5028116010&sort=cited_by_count:desc) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 [2 works on this site](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/theo-desbordes/#papers) · [1 235 citations in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/theo-desbordes/cited-by/) · [⭐ Paper Star rank #3847](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/paper-stars/page/39/#star-3847) The profile is the library's match of the name; two people with one name are not always told apart. Elsewhere: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=Th%C3%A9o+Desbordes) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=Th%C3%A9o+Desbordes) · [dblp](https://dblp.org/search?q=Th%C3%A9o+Desbordes) · [ACL Anthology](https://aclanthology.org/search/?q=Th%C3%A9o+Desbordes) ## Affiliations - [University of Geneva](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-geneva/) · Geneva, Switzerland —current · 2026 on 3 papers - [Athena Research and Innovation Center In Information Communication & Knowledge Technologies](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/labs/athena-research-and-innovation-center-in-information-communication-knowledge/) · Marousi, Greece —current · 2026 on 1 paper - [Université Paris 8](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/universite-paris-8/) · Paris, France —current · 2026 on 1 paper - [Meta (United States)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/companies/meta/) · Menlo Park, United States —2019–2021 on 3 papers - [Meta (United Kingdom)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/companies/meta-united-kingdom/) · London, United Kingdom —2019–2021 on 2 papers From the bylines of their papers (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14), ORCID and Wikidata; institutions on papers are matched by machine. 5 more institutions on single bylines are not listed. ## Topics [Language models & pretraining 2](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/) · [Syntax & grammar formalisms 1](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/syntax-grammar/) ## Works by year ### 2020s [**2023** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/zacharopoulos-2023-assessing-influence-attractor-verb-distance/) ### 2010s [**2019** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lakretz-2019-emergence-number-syntax-units-lstm/) ## Papers The most cited first (OpenAlex and our library). 1. **[The emergence of number and syntax units in LSTM language models](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lakretz-2019-emergence-number-syntax-units-lstm/)** *(2019 · 194 citations)* LSTM language models handle long-distance subject–verb number agreement well, but it was unclear whether they rely on real syntactic structure or on shallow cues. 2. **[Assessing the influence of attractor-verb distance on grammatical agreement in humans and language models](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/zacharopoulos-2023-assessing-influence-attractor-verb-distance/)** *(2023 · 1 citation)* The study asks how the distance between an attractor noun and the verb affects subject–verb number agreement in people and in neural language models. ## Co-authors here 4 co-authors with a page, the most papers together first. - [Dieuwke Hupkes](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/dieuwke-hupkes/) - [German Kruszewski](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/german-kruszewski/) - [Marco Baroni](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/marco-baroni/) - [Yair Lakretz](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/yair-lakretz/) ## Cited by Papers of our library cite their works 1 235 times (of the 140 884 papers whose bibliographies we read); [141 citing papers with a page here →](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/theo-desbordes/cited-by/).