Cross-Lingual Alignment Without Joint Training: Do Monolingual Language Models Converge on Universal Representations?

2026-08-27

AI Summary

研究通过测试严格单语模型，发现无需联合训练也能学习可对齐的表示，揭示了跨语言对齐可从语言结构中自然产生。

Abstract

Cross-lingual alignment in multilingual language models is typically attributed to joint training: shared parameters, mixed-language batches, or explicit alignment objectives. We ask whether monolingual models trained on non-parallel data learn alignable representations without joint training. By testing on strictly monolingual language models, such as the Goldfish model families and independently developed models from different research labs, we find three results. Correlation: these models develop alignable representational geometry across layers, with alignment strengthening as data scale, model scale, or linguistic proximity increases. Construction: a single Procrustes rotation fit on parallel sentences maps hidden states between models. Causation: the same rotation transfers functional content; patching a rotated English residual into a German model on a factual cloze flips the prediction to the donor's capital in most cases. We confirm that cross-lingual alignment can emerge from the structure of language and the information it carries rather than from joint training, and this points to practical future directions including model stitching, merging, and modular multilingual systems built from monolingual components.

Problem

• Cross-lingual Alignment
• Monolingual Models
• Universal Representations

Innovation

• Cross-lingual Alignment
• Monolingual Models
• Procrustes Rotation
• Representational Geometry