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 due to a profound difference in how the two formalisms construct their tree languages. In particular, TAGs’ tree adjunction corresponds to a specific kind of substitution that cannot be emulated by MGs’ Move operation. However, Graf (2012) gives a general scheme for enriching MGs with new variants of Move without increasing their weak generative capacity. I show that tree adjunction can be emulated by a specific kind of lowering movement and give a general procedure for translating (suitably preprocessed) TAGs into MGs.
@Misc{Graf12TAGtalk,
author = {Graf, Thomas},
title = {Tree Adjunction as {M}inimalist Lowering},
year = {2012},
note = {Slides of a talk given at the 11th International
Workshop on Tree Adjoining Grammars and Related Formalisms
(TAG+11), September 26--28, University Paris-Diderot,
Paris, France}
}