Abstract This paper investigates bounds on the generative capacity of prosodic processes, by focusing on the complexity of recursive prosody in coordination contexts in English (Wagner, 2010). Although all phonological processes and most prosodic processes are computationally …
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Trees probe deeper than strings: an argument from allomorphy
read moreAbstract Linguists disagree on whether morphological representations should be strings or trees. We argue that tree-based views of morphology can provide new insights into morphological complexity even in cases where the posited tree structure closely matches the surface …
Curbing Feature Coding: Strictly Local Feature Assignment
read moreAbstract Graf (2017) warns that every syntactic formalism faces a severe overgeneration problem because of the hidden power of subcategorization. Any constraint definable in monadic second-order logic can be compiled into the category system so that it is indirectly enforced as part of …
Monotonicity in Syntax
read moreAbstract Extending previous work on monotonicity in morphology and morphosyntax, I argue that some of the most important constraints in syntax can be analyzed in terms of monotonic functions that map spe cific kinds of syntactic representations to fixed, universal hierarchies. I cover …
Monotonicity in Syntax
read moreAbstract Extending previous work on monotonicity in morphology and morphosyntax, I argue that some of the most important constraints in syntax can be analyzed in terms of monotonic functions that map specific kinds of syntactic representations to fixed, universal hierarchies. I cover the …
The computational unity of Merge and Move
read moreAbstract Based on a formal analysis of the operations Merge and Move, I provide a computational answer to the question why Move might be an integral part of language. The answer is rooted in the framework of subregular complexity, which reveals that Merge …
Diving deeper into subregular syntax
read moreAbstract In my target paper Subregular linguistics: Bridging theoretical linguistics and formal grammar I argued that theoretical linguistics and formal grammar, despite major differences in methodology, have a lot to offer to each other, and that the recently emerged subfield of subregular linguistics …
Subregular linguistics: bridging theoretical linguistics and formal grammar
read moreAbstract Subregular linguistics is a fairly new approach that seeks a deeper understanding of language by combining the rigor of formal grammar with the empirical sophistication of theoretical linguistics. The approach started in phonology but has since branched out to morphology and even …
Typological Implications of Tier-Based Strictly Local Movement
read moreAbstract Earlier work has shown that movement, which forms the backbone of Minimalist syntax, belongs in the subregular class of TSL-2 dependencies over trees. The central idea is that movement, albeit unbounded, boils down to local mother-daughter dependencies on a specific substructure …
Subregular tree transductions, movement, copies, traces, and the ban on improper movement
read moreAbstract Extending prior work in Graf (2018, 2020, 2022c), I show that movement is tier-based strictly local (TSL) even if one analyzes it as a transformation, i.e. a tree transduction from derivation trees to output trees. I define input strictly local (ISL …
Morphologically simplex D-quantifiers are strictly 2-local
read moreAbstract Even though languages can express a wide range of quantifiers, only a small number are ever realized as morphologically simplex determiners: every, no, some, and most. This is puzzling because I) most is much more complex than the other three, and II …
The dose makes the poison: Chesi’s vision and subregular syntax
read moreAbstract In this reply to Chesi’s Is it the end of (generative) linguistics as we know it, I argue that the specifics of his vision for generative syntax in the 21st century remain hazy. Depending on how one interprets Chesi’s methodological …
Automata for subregular syntax: Syntax with strings attached
read moreAbstract Building on recent work in subregular syntax, we argue that syntactic constraints are best understood as operating not over trees, but rather strings that track structural relations such as dominance and c-command. Even constraints that seem intrinsically tied to …
Multiple Wh-Movement is not Special: The Subregular Complexity of Persistent Features in Minimalist Grammars
read moreAbstract Minimalist grammars have been criticized for their inability to analyze successive cyclic movement and multiple wh-movement in a manner that is faithful to the Minimalist literature. Persistent features have been proposed in the literature as a potential remedy (Stabler …
Multiple Wh-Movement is not Special: The Subregular Complexity of Persistent Features in Minimalist Grammars
read moreAbstract Minimalist grammars have been criticized for their inability to analyze successive cyclic movement and multiple wh-movement in a manner that is faithful to the Minimalist literature. Persistent features have been proposed in the literature as a potential remedy (Stabler …
Diagnosing Movement via the Absence of C-command Relations
read moreAbstract In this paper, we propose a new diagnostic for movement. It has been argued in the computational linguistics literature that some constraints can be formalized by path constraints on the sequence of their c-commanders (Graf and Shafiei 2019), and …
Cyclic scope and processing difficulty in a Minimalist parser
read moreAbstract A common view in the theoretical literature is that quantifier raising (QR) is a clause-bounded operation. But in a paper published in Glossa, Wurmbrand (2018) argues that (i) QR is not clause-bounded, and the apparent clause-boundedness of QR is …
The Subregular Complexity of Syntactic Islands
read moreAbstract We provide a formal framework for analyzing syntactic island effects from a subregular perspective. Key aspects of the syntactic representation are encoded as strings where precedence represents containment. Island effects then are expressed as constraints on the shape of …
Are syntactic categories ISL-2 inferrable? A corpus study
read moreAbstract We use the MG treebank of Torr (2017) to investigate the conjecture in Graf (2020) that category systems are ISL-2 inferrable. A category system is ISL-2 inferrable iff the category feature of every lexical item …
Modeling island effects with probabilistic tier-based strictly local grammars over trees
read moreAbstract We fuse two recent strands of work in subregular linguistics—probabilistic tier projections (Mayer, 2021) and tier-based perspectives on movement (Graf, 2022a)—into a probabilistic model of syntax that makes it easy to add gradience …
Modeling island effects with probabilistic tier-based strictly local grammars over trees
read moreAbstract We fuse two recent strands of work in subregular linguistics—probabilistic tier projections (Mayer, 2021) and tier-based perspectives on movement (Graf, 2022a)—into a probabilistic model of syntax that makes it easy to add gradience …
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read more:::bibtex @misc{AksenovaEtAl16NECPhontalk, author = {Aks\"{e}nova, Al\"{e}na and Graf, Thomas and Moradi, Sedigheh}, author+an = {1=sbu;3=sbu}, title = {Tier-Based Strict Locality in Phonology and Morphology}, year = {2016}, note = {Slides of a talk given at the 10th Northeast …Files
read more:::bibtex @incollection{AksenovaEtAl24Handbook, author = {Aks\"{e}nova, Al\"{e}na and Rawski, Jonathan and Graf, Thomas and Heinz, Jeffrey}, title = {The Computational Power of Harmonic Forms}, booktitle = {Handbook of Vowel Harmony}, year = {2024}, editor = {Harry van der Hulst}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, address = {Oxford …Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{DeSantoGraf19FGtalk, author={De Santo, Aniello and Graf, Thomas}, author+an = {1=sbu}, title={Structure Sensitive Tier Projection: Applications and Formal Properties}, year = {2019}, note = {Slides of a talk given at the 24th Conference on Formal Grammar, August 11, Riga, Latvia} }Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{DolatianEtAl21Sigmorphon, title = {Recursive Prosody is not Finite-State}, author={Dolatian, Hossep and De Santo, Aniello and Graf, Thomas}, year={2021}, booktitle = {Proceedings of {SIGMORPHON} 2021}, pages = {11--22}, doi = {10.18653/v1/2021.sigmorphon-1.2}, openaccess = {gold}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{DolatianEtAl21Sigmorphontalk, title = {Recursive Prosody is not Finite-State}, author={Dolatian, Hossep and De Santo, Aniello and Graf, Thomas}, year={2021}, note = {Slides of a talk given at \emph{{SIGMORPHON} 2021}, August 5, online}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @inproceedings{DolatianEtAl22Sigmorphon, title = {Trees Probe Deeper Than Strings: an Argument From Allomorphy}, author = {Dolatian, Hossep and Ikawa, Shiori and Graf, Thomas}, author+an = {2=student}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 19th {SIGMORPHON} Workshop on Computational Research in Phonetics, Phonology, and Morphology}, year = {2022 …Abstract A short squib on the special gender agreement properties exhibited by Icelandic nouns when their semantic gender is different from their syntactic gender.
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read more:::bibtex @Article{Graf07Snippets, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Agreement with Hybrid Nouns in {Icelandic}}, year = {2007}, journal = {Snippets}, volume = {16 …- read more
Abstract Inspired by the model-theoretic approach to phonology deployed by Kracht (2003) and Potts and Pullum (2002), I develop an extendable modal logic for the investigation of phonological theories operating on (richly annotated) string structures. In contrast to previous research in this vein (Russel 1993 …
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Abstract Choosing as my vantage point the linguistically motivated Müller-Sternefeld hierarchy (Müller and Sternefeld 2000), which classifies constraints according to their locality properties, I investigate the interplay of various syntactic constraint classes on a formal level. For non-comparative constraints, I use Rogers’ (2003) framework of …
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Abstract In previous work, we used techniques from mathematical logic and model theory to study and compare two phonological theories, SPE and Government Phonology. The surprising result was that Government Phonology corresponds to a very weak fragment of SPE, yet it can attain the full …
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Abstract Reference-set constraints are a special class of constraints used in Minimalist syntax. They extend the notion of well-formedness beyond the level of single trees: When presented with some phrase structure tree, they compute its set of competing output candidates and determine the optimal output …
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Abstract It has been conjectured that all properties of language beyond recursion can be motivated by interface requirements. One component in this setup is the parser, which is thought to give rise to a preference for computational parsimony. I discuss a mathematical result on reference-set …
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Abstract Graf (2011) and Kobele (2011) proved independently that Minimalist grammars can express all constraints that are definable in weak monadic second-order logic (MSO), i.e. the extension of first-order logic with quantification over finite sets. The proof takes as its vantage point the well-known …
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Abstract One of the central changes in 20th century linguistics was the reconceptualization of language as a cognitive ability rather than merely an abstract relational system of signs —- in the terminology of Chomsky (1986), the move from E-language to I-language. This shift entails that linguistic …
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read more:::bibtex @Article{Graf19JLM, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Monotonicity as an Effective Theory of Morphosyntactic Variation}, year = {2019}, journal = {Journal of Language Modelling}, volume = {7}, issue = {2}, pages = {3--47}, doi = {10.15398/jlm.v7i2.211}, openaccess = {gold}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{Graf19Kasistotalk, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Working the Tail: Improving {UX} by Optimizing Low-Frequency Items}, year = {2019}, note = {Invited talk, July 8, Kasisto Inc, New York City, New York} }Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{Graf20SCiL, title = {Curbing Feature Coding: {Strictly} Local Feature Assignment}, author = {Graf, Thomas}, year = {2020}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in {Linguistics} ({SCiL}) 2020}, pages = {362--371}, doi = {10.7275/f7y5-xz32}, openaccess = {gold}, } @InProceedings{ShafieiGraf20SCiL, author = {Shafiei, Nazila and Graf …Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{Graf20Tsinghua, author={Graf, Thomas}, editor={Deng, Dun and Liu, Fenrong and Liu, Mingming and Westerst{\aa}hl, Dag}, title={Monotonicity in Syntax}, booktitle={Monotonicity in Logic and Language}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, volume = {12564}, year={2020}, publisher={Springer}, address={Berlin …Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{Graf20Tsinghuatalk, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Monotonicity in Syntax}, year = {2020}, note = {Slides of a talk given at the \emph{Second Tsinghua Interdisciplinary Workshop on Logic, Language, and Meaning (TLLM 2020)}, December 17--20, Beijing, China}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @article{Graf21ELT, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {The Computational Unity of {Merge} and {Move}}, year = {2021}, journal = {Evolutionary Linguistic Theory}, volume = {3}, pages = {154--180}, doi = {10.1075/elt.00032.gra}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{Graf21ESSLLIcourse, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {The Computational Nature of Language}, year = {2021}, note = {Summer course, July 26--30, ESSLLI, online}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{Graf21MITcourse, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Subregular Linguistics for\ldots well, linguists}, year = {2021}, note = {Mini-course, May 5--6, MIT, Boston, Massachusetts}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{Graf22SCiL, title = {Typological Implications of Tier-Based Strictly Local Movement}, author = {Graf, Thomas}, year = {2022}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in {Linguistics} ({SCiL}) 2022}, pages = {184--193}, doi = {10.7275/gb65-ht31}, openaccess = {gold}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @article{Graf22TLresponse, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Diving Deeper into Subregular Syntax}, year = {2022}, journal = {Theoretical Linguistics}, volume = {48}, pages = {245--278}, doi = {10.1515/tl-2022-2043}, openaccess = {gold}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @article{Graf22TLtarget, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Subregular Linguistics: Bridging Theoretical Linguistics and Formal Grammar}, year = {2022}, journal = {Theoretical Linguistics}, volume = {48}, pages = {145--184}, doi = {10.1515/tl-2022-2037}, openaccess = {gold}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{Graf23CRISSPcourse, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Syntactic Tiers for Movement and Agreement}, year = {2023}, note = {Mini-course, December 6--8, CRISSP KU Leuven, Brussels, Belgium}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{Graf23SCiL, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Subregular Tree Transductions, Movement, Copies, Traces, and the Ban on Improper Movement}, year = {2023}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in {Linguistics} ({SCiL}) 2023}, pages = {289--299}, doi = {10.7275/tk1n-q855}, openaccess = {gold}, }Files [pdf]
read more:::bibtex @misc{Graf23SCiLtalk, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Subregular Tree Transductions, Movement, Copies, Traces, and the Ban on Improper Movement}, year = {2023}, note = {Slides of a talk given at \emph{{SCiL} 2023}, June 15--17, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{Graf24SCiL, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Morphologically Simplex {D}-quantifiers are Strictly 2-Local}, year = {2024}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in {Linguistics} ({SCiL}) 2024}, pages = {32--42}, doi = {10.7275/scil.2127}, openaccess = {gold}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @article{Graf25ChesiReply, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {The dose makes the poison: {Chesi's} Vision and Subregular Syntax}, year = {2025}, journal = {Italian Journal of Linguistics}, volume = {37}, pages = {85--98}, doi = {10.26346/1120-2726-241}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{GrafDeSanto19MOLtalk, title = {Sensing Tree Automata as a Model of Syntactic Dependencies}, author = {Graf, Thomas and De Santo, Aniello}, author+an = {2=sbu}, year = {2019}, note = {Slides of a talk given at the 16th meeting on the mathematics of language ({MOL} 2019 …Abstract A festschrift for Ed Keenan, containing 49 contributions from a variety of areas (syntax, semantics, typology, computational).
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read more:::bibtex @Proceedings{GrafEtAl12Festschrift, title = {Theories of Everything. In Honor of Ed Keenan}, year = {2012}, editor = {Graf, Thomas and Paperno, Denis and Szabolcsi, Anna and Tellings …Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{GrafHanson25SCiL, author = {Graf, Thomas and Hanson, Kenneth}, author+an = {2=sbu}, title = {Automata for Subregular Syntax: Syntax With Strings Attached}, year = {2025}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in {Linguistics} ({SCiL}) 2025}, article = {23}, doi = {10.7275/scil.3184}, openaccess = {gold …Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{GrafKostyszyn21SCiL, author = {Graf, Thomas and Kostyszyn, Kalina}, author+an = {2=sbu}, title = {Multiple Wh-Movement is not Special: The Subregular Complexity of Persistent Features in {Minimalist} Grammars}, year = {2021}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in {Linguistics} ({SCiL}) 2021}, pages = {275 …Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{GrafKostyszyn21SCiLtalk, author = {Graf, Thomas and Kostyszyn, Kalina}, author+an = {2=sbu}, title = {Multiple Wh-Movement is not Special: The Subregular Complexity of Persistent Features in {M}inimalist Grammars}, year = {2021}, note = {Slides of a talk given at \emph{{SCiL} 2021}, February 15 …Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{GrafLaszakovits19PLC, author = {Graf, Thomas and Laszakovits, Sabine}, author+an = {2=student}, title = {Diagnosing Movement via the Absence of c-Command Relations}, year = {2020}, booktitle = {University of {Pennsylvania} Working Papers in Linguistics}, volume = {26}, issue = {1}, pages = {135--144}, note = {Article 16}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{MoradiEtAl19SCiL, author = {Moradi, Sedigheh and Aks\"{e}nova, Al\"{e}na and Graf, Thomas}, author+an = {1=sbu;2=sbu}, title = {The Computational Cost of Generalizations: An Example From Micromorphology}, year = {2019}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in {Linguistics} ({SCiL …Files
read more:::bibtex @article{PasternakGraf21Glossa, author = {Pasternak, Robert and Graf, Thomas}, author+an = {1=sbu}, title = {Cyclic Scope and Processing Difficulty in a {Minimalist} Parser}, year = {2021}, journal = {Glossa}, volume = {6}, pages = {1--34}, doi = {10.5334/gjgl.1209}, openaccess = {gold}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{ShafieiGraf20SCiL, author = {Shafiei, Nazila and Graf, Thomas}, author+an = {1=sbu}, title = {The Subregular Complexity of Syntactic Islands}, year = {2020}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in {Linguistics} ({SCiL}) 2020}, pages = {272--281}, doi = {10.7275/scil.1202}, openaccess = {gold}, }Files
read more:::bibtex @misc{ShafieiGraf20SCiLposter, author = {Shafiei, Nazila and Graf, Thomas}, author+an = {1=sbu}, title = {The Subregular Complexity of Syntactic Islands}, year = {2020}, note = {Poster presented at \emph{{SCiL} 2020}, January 2--5, co-located with the {LSA 2020}} }Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{SwansonEtAl25SCiL, author = {Swanson, Logan and Hanson, Kenneth and Graf, Thomas}, author+an = {1=sbu;2=sbu}, title = {Are Syntactic Categories {ISL-2} Inferrable? {A} Corpus Study}, year = {2025}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in {Linguistics} ({SCiL}) 2025}, article = {19}, doi …Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{TorresEtAl23SCiL, author = {Torres, Charles and Hanson, Kenneth and Graf, Thomas and Mayer, Connor}, author+an = {1=student;2=sbu}, title = {Modeling Island Effects With Probabilistic Tier-Based Strictly Local Grammars Over Trees}, year = {2023}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the {Society} for {Computation} in …Files
read more:::bibtex @InProceedings{TorresEtAl23SCiLtalk, author = {Torres, Charles and Hanson, Kenneth and Graf, Thomas and Mayer, Connor}, author+an = {1=student;2=sbu}, title = {Modeling Island Effects With Probabilistic Tier-Based Strictly Local Grammars Over Trees}, year = {2023}, note = {Slides of a talk given at \emph …- read more
Abstract Graf (2017) warns that every syntactic formalism faces a severe overgeneration problem because of the hidden power of subcategorization. Any constraint definable in monadic second-order logic can be compiled into the category system so that it is indirectly enforced as part of subcategorization. Not …
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Abstract Semantic automata theory studies the complexity of generalized quantifiers in terms of the string languages that describe their truth conditions. An important point has gone unnoticed so far: for most quantifiers that are determiners, these string languages are subregular. Whereas quantifier phrases such as …
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Abstract Semantic automata theory studies the complexity of generalized quantifiers in terms of the string languages that describe their truth conditions. An important point has gone unnoticed so far: for most quantifiers that are determiners, these string languages are subregular. Whereas quantifier phrases such as …
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Abstract Drawing from computational work that is known as the subregular program, I argue against two received views in linguistics: “phonology and syntax are very different’ and “subcategorization is a solved problem”.
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Cognitive parallelism
Subregular notions of complexity can be applied to strings as well …
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Abstract Do contemporary syntactic theories rely on too many features? Decades of computational research have culminated in two contradictory answers:
- Yes, there are too many features because having at least two features is already one too many and brings in undesirable overgeneration.
- No, the number …
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Abstract Based on an earlier finding that almost all c-command dependencies amount to subregular constraints on c-strings, we argue that all exceptions to this generalization involve movement. Since regulating movement is already known to be beyond the purview of c-strings, it is only natural that …
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Abstract We provide a general formal framework for analyzing c-command based dependencies in syntax, e.g. binding and NPI licensing, from a subregular perspective. C-command relations are represented as strings computed from Minimalist derivation trees, and syntactic dependencies are shown to be input-output tier-based strictly …
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Abstract The central concern of linguistics is to succinctly state generalizations. But as numerous linguists have pointed out over the years, generalizations do not always come for free. A formalism’s ability to account for the data does not entail that it can express the …
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Abstract Recent work suggests that the subregular complexity of syntax might be comparable to that of phonology and morphology. More specifically, whereas phonological and morphological dependencies are tier-based strictly local over strings, syntactic dependencies are tier-based strictly local over derivation trees. However, a broader range …
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Abstract The subregular approach has revealed that the phonological surface patterns found in natural language are much simpler than previously assumed. Most patterns belong to the subregular class of tier-based strictly local languages (TSL), which characterizes them as the combination of a strictly local dependency …
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Abstract Various aspects of syntax have recently been characterized in subregular terms. However, these characterizations operate over very different representations, including string encodings of c-command relations as well as tiers projected from derivation trees. We present a way to unify these approaches via sensing tree …
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Abstract It is a well-known fact of computational linguistics that syntax is mildly context-sensitive and thus highly complex —- certainly more complex than phonology or morphology. This complexity is at odds with the ease of language acquisition and the impressive speed of human sentence processing. If …
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Abstract It is a well-known fact of computational linguistics that syntax is mildly context-sensitive and thus highly complex —- certainly more complex than phonology or morphology. This complexity is at odds with the ease of language acquisition and the impressive speed of human sentence processing. If …
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Abstract Sanskrit /n/-retroflexion is one of the most complex segmental processes in phonology. While it is still star-free, it does not fit in any of the subregular classes that are commonly entertained in the literature. We show that when construed as a phonotactic dependency …
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Abstract Sanskrit /n/-retroflexion is one of the most complex segmental processes in phonology. While it is still star-free, it does not fit in any of the subregular classes that are commonly entertained in the literature. We show that when construed as a phonotactic dependency …
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Abstract We provide a general formal framework for analyzing c-command based dependencies in syntax, e.g. binding and NPI licensing, from a subregular perspective. C-command relations are represented as strings computed from Minimalist derivation trees, and syntactic dependencies are shown to be input-output tier-based strictly …
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Abstract Recent work suggests that the subregular complexity of syntax might be comparable to that of phonology and morphology. More specifically, whereas phonological and morphological dependencies are tier-based strictly local over strings, syntactic dependencies are tier-based strictly local over derivation trees. However, a broader range …
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Abstract One of the major goals of linguistics is to delineate the possible range of variation across languages. Recent work has identified a surprising number of typological gaps in a variety of domains. In morphology, this includes stem suppletion, person pronoun syncretism, case syncretism, and …
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Abstract Big Data, machine learning, and neural networks have taken NLP by storm. This talk evaluates these approaches from a critical perspective. I argue that in particular for customer-facing applications, these techniques do not perform as well as one would hope once one goes beyond …
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Abstract A lot of recent work in computational phonology seeks to pinpoint the complexity of phonotactic dependencies from a formal perspective. Numerous mathematical classes have been proposed, but Graf (2017) subsumes them all under the umbrella of interval-based strictly piecewise dependencies (IBSP). IBSP treats all …
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Abstract Heinz and Idsardi (2013) draw attention to a profound computational difference between syntax and phonology: phonology only requires regular computations over strings (Johnson 1972; Kaplan and Kay 1994), whereas syntax involves non-regular computations over strings (Chomsky 1956; Huybregts 1984; Shieber 1985; Radzinski 1991; Michaelis …
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Abstract This paper presents a novel answer to the question why Move might be an integral part of language. The answer is rooted in the computational framework of subregular complexity, which has already been fruitfully applied to phonology. The computational perspective reveals that Merge belongs …
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Abstract A lot of recent work in computational phonology seeks to pinpoint the complexity of phonotactic dependencies from a formal perspective. Numerous mathematical classes have been proposed, but Graf (2017) subsumes them all under the umbrella of interval-based strictly piecewise dependencies (IBSP). IBSP treats all …
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Abstract Ever since McCawley (1968) one of the fundamental questions of linguistic theory has been whether formalisms should be construed as derivational or representational in nature. The former focuses on how structures are built in an incremental fashion from pre-defined atoms via structure-building operations, whereas …
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Abstract This work is a first tentative step towards motivating constraints on movement as a mechanism for minimizing grammar size.
Recently is has been proved that every Minimalist grammar can be converted into a strongly equivalent single movement normal form such that every phrase moves …
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Abstract This work is a first tentative step towards motivating constraints on movement as a mechanism for minimizing grammar size.
Recently is has been proved that every Minimalist grammar can be converted into a strongly equivalent single movement normal form such that every phrase moves …
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Abstract Two linguistic findings are commonly taken for granted yet are anything but trivial:
- Phrases can be displaced from their base position.
- Some phrases block displacement.
On a technical level, these properties are hashed out in terms of movement and islands. From a naive perspective …
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Abstract Even though languages are capable of expressing very complex generalized quantifiers such as all but seven and an even number of, the range of possible meanings for monomorphemic determiners seems to be limited to every, no, some, and numerals. In this talk, I argue …
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Abstract A lot of recent work in computational phonology seeks to pinpoint the complexity of phonotactic dependencies from a formal perspective. Numerous mathematical classes have been proposed, but Graf (2017) subsumes them all under the umbrella of interval-based strictly piecewise dependencies (IBSP). IBSP treats all …
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Abstract Semantic automata were developed to compare the complexity of generalized quantifiers based on the complexity of the string languages that describe their truth conditions. An important point that has gone unnoticed so far is that the generated string languages are remarkably simple for monomorphemic …
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Abstract Several typological gaps have attracted a lot of interest in the linguistic literature recently. These concern the Person Case Constraint and the absence of ABA patterns in adjectival gradation, pronoun suppletion, case syncretism, and singular noun allomorphy, among others. This paper is the first …
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Abstract Several typological gaps have attracted a lot of interest in the linguistic literature recently. These concern the Person Case Constraint and the absence of ABA patterns in adjectival gradation, pronoun suppletion, case syncretism, and singular noun allomorphy, among others. This paper is the first …
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Abstract Bobaljik & Sauerland’s *ABA and the Combinatorics of Morphological Features attempts to explain the absence of ABA patterns across languages in terms of feature combinatorics. Their approach marks a step in the right direction by focusing on the algebra underlying the feature calculus, rather …
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Abstract It is commonly believed that phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics are distinct modules of language, governed by very different principles with little common ground. Nonetheless several approaches (e.g. Government Phonology, Distributed Morphology) subscribe to the idea that at least some of these language …
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Abstract Domains play an integral role in linguistic theories. This paper combines locality domains with current work on the computational complexity of phonology. The first result is that if a specific formalism —- Strictly Piecewise (SP) grammars —- is supplemented with a mechanism to enforce first-order definable …
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Abstract Minimalist grammars have been used recently in a series of papers to explain well-known contrasts in human sentence processing in terms of subtle structural differences. These proposals combine a top-down parser with complexity metrics that relate parsing difficulty to memory usage. So far, though …
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Abstract Logic has always played a central role in the study of natural language meaning. But logic can also be used to describe the structure of words and sentences. Recent research has revealed that these structures are so simple that they can be modeled with …
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Abstract Linguists study a variety of aspects of language, including phonology, morphology, and syntax. It is commonly believed that those are distinct modules of language, governed by very different principles and consequently studied with very different tools. While there have been attempts at unification (e …
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Abstract Movement is the locus of power in Minimalist grammars (MGs) but also their primary source of complexity. In order to simplify future analysis of the formalism, we prove that every MG can be converted into a strongly equivalent MG where every phrase moves at …
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Abstract It is commonly accepted that morphological dependencies are finite-state in nature. We argue that the upper bound on morphological expressivity is much lower. Drawing on technical results from computational phonology, we show that a variety of morphotactic phenomena are tier-based strictly local and do …
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Abstract It is commonly accepted that morphological dependencies are finite-state in nature. We argue that the upper bound on morphological expressivity is much lower. Drawing on technical results from computational phonology, we show that a variety of morphotactic phenomena are tier-based strictly local and do …
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Abstract TAGs were recently shown not to be closed under strong lexicalization but to be strongly lexicalizable by context-free tree grammars of rank 2. This paper presents an alternative lexicalization procedure that builds on an earlier generalization of TAGs to multi-dimensional trees. A previous theorem …
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Abstract A contentious issue in the Minimalist literature is whether certain phenomena are best described in terms of features or constraints. Building on recent work in mathematical linguistics, I argue that constraints and features are interchangeable in Minimalist syntax. This does not invalidate the feature-constraint …
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Abstract Movement is the locus of power in Minimalist grammars (MGs) but also their primary source of complexity. In order to simplify future analysis of the formalism, we prove that every MG can be converted into a strongly equivalent MG where every phrase moves at …
- read more
Abstract TAGs were recently shown not to be closed under strong lexicalization but to be strongly lexicalizable by context-free tree grammars of rank 2. This paper presents an alternative lexicalization procedure that builds on an earlier generalization of TAGs to multi-dimensional trees. A previous theorem …
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Abstract Barely any task is more challenging and more effortlessly carried out by humans than the efficient use of language. Within a couple of years, children figure out a learning problem that even computers with large, extensively annotated training sets fail at. On a daily …
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:::bibtex @Misc{GrafEtAl16IACSposter, author = {Graf, Thomas and Monette, James and Pasternak, Robert and Zhang, Chong}, author+an = {2=sbu;3=sbu;4=sbu}, title = {Memory Usage Predicts Relative Difficulty in Human Sentence Processing}, year = {2016}, note = {Poster presented at the {IACS} {R … - read more
Abstract I argue that important generalizations in morphosyntax are currently obscured by the technical details of the syntactic apparatus. These generalizations can be brought out more clearly via a perspective that is informed by higher algebra.
I support my argument with a case study of …
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Abstract Computational linguistics is often construed as the enterprise of processing language with computers. But the field has much more to offer than just that. A computationally informed perspective of language offers profound scientific insights and can unearth new language universals. In this talk, I …
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Abstract Adjuncts differ from arguments by a number of properties, in particular i) optionality and ii) their island status, which renders them opaque for extraction of subconstituents. Conjuncts, too, are optional and forbid extraction. Starting from this basic observation, I demonstrate that islandhood is a …
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read more:::bibtex @Misc{Graf15StPetetalk, author = {Graf, Thomas}, title = {Syntax and Phonology: {A} Computational Common Core}, year = {2015}, note = {Department of Mathematical Linguistics, Saint Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia} }- read more
Abstract I argue that computational parsing research so far has operated at the wrong level(s) of granularity and that we should take a hint from formal language theory instead. Rather than compare the predictions of specific parsing models for specific phenomena, we should identify …
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Abstract Recently there has been a lot of interest in testing the processing predictions of a specific top-down parser for Minimalist grammars (Stabler 2012). Most of this work relies on memory-based difficulty metrics that relate the shape of the parse tree to processing behavior. We …
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Abstract Recently there has been a lot of interest in testing the processing predictions of a specific top-down parser for Minimalist grammars (Stabler 2012). Most of this work relies on memory-based difficulty metrics that relate the shape of the parse tree to processing behavior. We …
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Abstract A common sentiment among linguists is that the Minimalist literature features a dazzling array of competing proposals that seem to share little common ground in their technical assumptions. While differences certainly do exist between accounts, a computationally informed perspective reveals a set of invariants …
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Abstract Heinz and Idsardi (2013) draw attention to a computational difference between syntax and phonology established by earlier research: phonology only requires regular computations over strings (Johnson 1972, Kaplan and Kay 1995), whereas syntax involves non-regular computations over strings (Chomsky 1956, Shieber 1985). In the …
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Abstract I draw on various result from mathematical linguistics to argue that feature-based accounts and constraint-based ones should not be viewed as competing with each other but rather as complementing each other. In particular, recent results on Minimalist grammars show that features and constraints are …
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Abstract Three closely related proposals for adding (cyclic) adjunction to Minimalist grammars are given model-theoretic definitions and investigated with respect to their linguistic and formal properties. While they differ with respect to their linguistic adequacy, they behave largely the same on a computational level. Weak …
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Abstract Three closely related proposals for adding (cyclic) adjunction to Minimalist grammars are given model-theoretic definitions and investigated with respect to their linguistic and formal properties. While they differ with respect to their linguistic adequacy, they behave largely the same on a computational level. Weak …
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Abstract In response to Kobele et al. (2012), we evaluate four ways of linking the processing difficulty of sentences to the behavior of the top-down parser for Minimalist grammars developed in Stabler (2012). We investigate the predictions these four metrics make for a number of …
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Abstract In response to Kobele et al. (2012), we evaluate four ways of linking the processing difficulty of sentences to the behavior of the top-down parser for Minimalist grammars developed in Stabler (2012). We investigate the predictions these four metrics make for a number of …
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Abstract Minimalist grammars can be specified in terms of their derivation tree languages and a mapping from derivations to derived trees, each of which is definable in monadic second-order logic (MSO). It has been shown that the linguistically motivated operation Late Merge can push either …
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Abstract Minimalist grammars can be specified in terms of their derivation tree languages and a mapping from derivations to derived trees, each of which is definable in monadic second-order logic (MSO). It has been shown that the linguistically motivated operation Late Merge can push either …
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Abstract The Person Case Constraint blocks certain combinations of clitics and weak pronouns in a variety of languages. Out of the numerous logical possibilities, only four variants of the Person Case Constraint are attested. I show that these four variants form a natural class when …
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Abstract The Person Case Constraint blocks certain combinations of clitics and weak pronouns in a variety of languages. Out of the numerous logical possibilities, only four variants of the Person Case Constraint are attested. I show that these four variants form a natural class when …
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Abstract A long-standing tension in Minimalist syntax is that between the structure-building operations Merge and Move on the one hand and the constraints restricting the shape of the structures built by said operations on the other. Proposals differ vastly in how much weight they attribute …
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Abstract This paper gives a theory-neutral account of the Adjunct Island Constraint. I show that the island status of adjuncts is a consequence of two properties that set them apart from arguments: optionality and independence. Adjuncts can be omitted without affecting grammaticality, and if an …
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Abstract I argue that the special behavior of adjuncts is a consequence of two properties that set them apart from arguments: optionality and independence.
- Optionality Adjuncts can be omitted.
- Independence Independently well-formed adjuncts can be combined.
These properties yield several grammaticality inferences that mirror the …
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Abstract I propose that if one takes seriously the Minimalist idea that syntax is driven by Merge and the feature calculus, the status of adjuncts as strong islands follows immediately from the properties that set them apart from arguments: optionality and iterability. This claim rests …
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Abstract The Person Case Constraint blocks certain combinations of clitics and weak pronouns in a variety of languages. Out of the numerous logical possibilities, only four variants of the Person Case Constraint are attested. I show that these four variants form a natural class when …
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Abstract Even though Minimalist grammars are more powerful than TAG on the string level, the classes of tree languages the two define are incomparable. I give a constructive proof that if the standard Move operation in Minimalist grammars is replaced by Reset Lowering, every TAG …
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Abstract TAG and Minimalist grammars (MGs) are related in very interesting ways. Even though MGs subsume TAGs at the level of string languages, their respective classes of tree languages are incomparable (Kobele et al 2007, Mönnich 2006). As pointed out by Mönnich (2006), this is …
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Abstract Recent results show that both TAG and Minimalist grammars can be enriched with rational constraints without increasing their strong generative capacity, where a constraint is rational iff it can be computed by a bottom-up tree automaton. This raises the question which aspects of syntax …
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Abstract Recent results show that both TAG and Minimalist grammars can be enriched with rational constraints without increasing their strong generative capacity, where a constraint is rational iff it can be computed by a bottom-up tree automaton. This raises the question which aspects of syntax …
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Abstract A general framework is presented that allows for Minimalist grammars to use arbitrary movement operations under the proviso that they are all definable by monadic second-order formulas over derivation trees. Lowering, sidewards movement, and clustering, among others, are the result of instantiating the parameters …
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Abstract A general framework is presented that allows for Minimalist grammars to use arbitrary movement operations under the proviso that they are all definable by monadic second-order formulas over derivation trees. Lowering, sidewards movement, and clustering, among others, are the result of instantiating the parameters …
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Abstract We have argued in previous work based on data from English that Principle B is suspended in all those contexts that would allow for an unbounded number of pronouns to occur within a single binding domain. American Sign Language seems to contradict this generalization …
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Abstract It is a well-known fact that pronouns can sometimes be locally bound in English, for instance in picture-phrases and certain adjuncts. Even though many different analyses have been developed over the years, it is still unclear why English exhibits this behavior, and more …
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Abstract Recent Minimalist thinking has been strongly influenced by the idea that some universals may be due to factors outside the language faculty, in particular limited computational resources (Chomsky 2005). In combination with recent results on Stablerian Minimalist grammars (Stabler 1997, Graf 2011, Kobele 2011 …
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Abstract Minimalist grammars provide a formalization of Minimalist syntax which allows us to study how the components of said theory affect its expressivity. A central concern of Minimalist syntax is the locality of the displacement operation Move. In Minimalist grammars, however, Move is unbounded. This …
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Abstract Minimalist grammars provide a formalization of Minimalist syntax which allows us to study how the components of said theory affect its expressivity. A central concern of Minimalist syntax is the locality of the displacement operation Move. In Minimalist grammars, however, Move is unbounded. This …
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Abstract Recently, the question has been raised whether the derivation tree languages of Minimalist grammars (MGs; Stabler 1997, Stabler & Keenan 2003) are closed under intersection with regular tree languages (Graf 2010). Using a variation of a proof technique devised by Thatcher (1967), I show that …
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Abstract Recently, the question has been raised whether the derivation tree languages of Minimalist grammars (MGs; Stabler 1997, Stabler & Keenan 2003) are closed under intersection with regular tree languages (Graf 2010). Using a variation of a proof technique devised by Thatcher (1967), I show that …
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Abstract Reference-set constraints (RCs; also known as transderivational constraints) differ from standard well-formedness conditions in that for every tree, they compute a set of output candidates called its reference set and pick from said set the optimal candidate(s) according to some economy metric. Well-known …
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Abstract I demonstrate that Merge-over-Move (MOM), a transderivational constraint (TC) put forward in Chomsky (1995, 2000), can be modeled by linear tree transducers, i.e.\ machines that take a tree as input and traverse it from the leaves towards the root while at the same …
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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 …
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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 …
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Abstract Inspired by Kracht (2003) and Potts and Pullum (2002), who use tools from mathematical logic in their investigation of phonological theories, I develop an extendable modal logic over string structures, which in turn is used to formalize a specific phonological theory, Government Phonology. Building …
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Abstract Reference-set constraints are a special class of constraints used in Minimalist syntax. They extend the notion of well-formedness beyond the level of single trees: When presented with some phrase structure tree, they compute its set of competing output candidates and determine the optimal output …
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Abstract Reference-set constraints are a special class of constraints used in Minimalist syntax. They extend the notion of well-formedness beyond the level of single trees: When presented with some phrase structure tree, they compute its set of competing output candidates and determine the optimal output …
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Abstract A core assumption of the biolinguistic program is that all properties of language beyond recursion can be motivated by requirements imposed by other cognitive modules. One component in this setup is the parser, which is thought to give rise to a preference for computational …
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Abstract Müller and Sternefeld (2000) propose a locality hierarchy of syntactic constraints such that {representational, derivational} < global < translocal < transderivational. We use formal methods to demonstrate that their hierarchy correctly assumes that higher constraint classes are more powerful, but we also show that for every class …
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Abstract Choosing as my vantage point the linguistically motivated Müller-Sternefeld hierarchy (Müller and Sternefeld 2000), which classifies constraints according to their locality properties, I investigate the interplay of various syntactic constraint classes on a formal level. For non-comparative constraints, I use Rogers’ (2003) framework of …
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Abstract Inspired by the model-theoretic approach to phonology deployed by Kracht (2003) and Potts and Pullum (2002), I develop an extendible modal logic for the investigation of phonological theories operating on (richly annotated) string structures. In contrast to previous research in this vein (Russell 1993 …
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Abstract Inspired by the model-theoretic approach to phonology deployed by Kracht (2003) and Potts and Pullum (2002), I develop an extendible modal logic for the investigation of phonological theories operating on (richly annotated) string structures. In contrast to previous research in this vein (Russell 1993 …
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Abstract In previous work, we used techniques from mathematical logic and model theory to study and compare two phonological theories, SPE and Government Phonology. The surprising result was that Government Phonology corresponds to a very weak fragment of SPE, yet it can attain the full …
Abstract My very first talk *nostalgia*. It’s a very early attempt at developing a general, model-theoretic meta-theory of linguistic constraints, which came to full fruition in my UCLA PhD thesis. Beware: it’s all in German.
read more:::bibtex @Misc{Graf08GGStalk, author = {Graf …- read more
Abstract Because the thesis I wrote as a wee undergrad at the University of Vienna is cited in Reuland (2011) Anaphora and Language Design, I finally decided to upload it despite its many shortcomings. The (preachy) message is that we have to be more careful …