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# Reference-Set Computation = Minimalism + Transformational Rules?

Wed 08 December 2010 | in Talks |

Graf, Thomas

Abstract Transderivational constraints (TC) formed an integral part of the early Minimalist Program. I develop a formal model of TCs firmly rooted in automata theory and subsequently argue that

• in general, TCs aren’t computationally intractable, nor does their complexity exceed that of non-transderivational constraints;
• TCs have technical advantages over normal constraints in accounting for cross-linguistic variation;
• an automata-theoretic approach brings us closer to a unified perspective on three rather distant research traditions, each of them with their unique body of empirical results: TCs, OT, and Synchronous Tree-Adjoining Grammar.

As an illustration of the applicability of this formal model, I exhibit precise implementations of Focus Economy (Reinhart 2006), the Merge-over-Move condition (Chomsky 1998), and the Shortest Derivation Principle.

Files [pdf] [code]

@Misc{Graf10Bielefeldtalk,
author    = {Graf, Thomas},
title     = {$\text{Reference-Set Computation} = \text{Minimalism} + \text{Transformational Rules?}$},
year      = {2010},
note      = {Invited talk, December 8, Institut für Linguistik,
Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany}
}