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 computation, an (allegedly) non-parsimonious piece of machinery, that challenges this assumption and suggests that syntax can sometimes “trick” the parser in order to escape its demands. If reference-set constraints are construed as so-called tree transducers, they do not increase the power of the syntactic machinery. This in turn entails that they can be expressed purely in terms of the Minimalist feature calculus regulating Merge and Move, so it cannot be ruled out that syntax employs reference-set constraints, whereas the parser operates on their less demanding equivalents. In order to demonstrate the viability of this approach for the kind of reference-set constraints found in the literature, I give an implementation of Merge-over-Move.

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Lost in Translation: A Formal Model of Merge-over-Move and Its Implications for the Language Faculty

Thu 06 January 2011 | in Presentations |
| syntax | transderivationality | reference-set computation | constraints | tree transducers | Merge-over-Move |

Graf, Thomas

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 …
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Reference-Set Computation = Minimalism + Transformational Rules?
Wed 08 December 2010 | in Presentations |
| constraints | transderivationality | optimality theory | Focus Economy | Merge-over-Move | Shortest Derivation Principle | transducers |

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 …
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Efficient Computation at the Interfaces

Graf, Thomas

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@Misc{Graf10ONLIposter,
  author    = {Graf, Thomas},
  title     = {Efficient Computation at the Interfaces},
  year      = {2010},
  note      = {Poster presented at On Linguistic Interfaces II (OnLI II),
          December 2--4, 2010, University of Ulster, Belfast, United
          Kingdom}
}

Rethinking Transderivationality
Fri 22 October 2010 | in Presentations |
| constraints | transderivationality | optimality theory | Focus Economy | Merge-over-Move | transducers |

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 …
read more
A Tree Transducer Model of Reference-Set Computation

Fri 01 January 2010 | in Papers |
| syntax | constraints | transderivationality | reference-set computation | optimality theory | Focus Economy | Merge-over-Move | Shortest Derivation Principle | tree transducers | MSO |

Graf, Thomas

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 …
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