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 …
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Grammar Size and Quantitative Restrictions on Movement
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 …
Grammar Size and Quantitative Restrictions on Movement
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 …
One Reason to Move, a Million Reasons to Be an Island: Third-Factor Explanations from Computational Syntax
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 …
Relative Clauses as a Benchmark for Minimalist Parsing
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 …
Memory Usage Predicts Relative Difficulty in Human Sentence Processing
A Refined Notion of Memory Usage for Minimalist Parsing
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 …
A Refined Notion of Memory Usage for Minimalist Parsing
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 …
A Hidden Consensus: Computational Invariants of Minimalist Syntax
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 …
Dependencies in Syntax and Phonology: A Computational Comparison
Late Merge as Lowering Movement in Minimalist Grammars
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 …
Late Merge as Lowering Movement in Minimalist Grammars
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 …
Tree Adjunction as Minimalist Lowering
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 …
Tree Adjunction as Minimalist Lowering
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 …
Movement-Generalized Minimalist Grammars
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 …
Movement-Generalized Minimalist Grammars
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 …