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 …
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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 spe cific kinds of syntactic representations to fixed, universal hierarchies. I cover …
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 …
Monotonicity as a High-Level Principle of Grammar
read moreAbstract Monotonicity is a staple of semantics, but has occasionally also made an appearance in other domains (cf. Fox & Pesetsky 2005). In this talk, I argue that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that monotonicity plays a central role in …
Monotonicity as a Third Factor in Syntax and Morphology
read moreAbstract Monotonicity is a staple of semantics, but has occasionally also made an appearance in other domains (cf. Fox & Pesetsky 2005). In this talk, I argue that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that monotonicity plays a central role in …
Syntactic Tiers: Empirical Applications and Challenges
read moreAbstract In prior work (Graf 2018), I have argued on computational grounds that movement is best understood by borrowing an idea from autosegmental phonology: specific elements of the syntactic structure are projected onto one or more tiers, and movement dependencies must be maximally …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Linguistics and Symbolic Computation in a World of Large Language Models
read moreAbstract Language has always played a central role in artificial intelligence, yet AI researchers and linguists have rarely seen eye to eye on things, in particular the status of subsymbolic/neural approaches to language. After decades of debates, it looks like the subsymbolic …
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 …
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 …
Formal and Substantive Universals Across Language Modules
read moreAbstract Monotonicity is a staple of semantics, but has occasionally also made an appearance in other domains (cf. Fox & Pesetsky 2005). In this talk, I argue that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that monotonicity plays a central role in …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Syntactic Tiers for Movement and Agreement
read moreAbstract This lecture series is an empirically minded introduction to the concept of tiers, which for the last ten year has played a central role in work at the intersection of theoretical and computational linguistics. While this computational notion of tiers is inspired …
The Computational Nature of Language
read moreAbstract This course is aimed at students with the general mathematical maturity that can be expected of ESSLLI students (sets, functions, relations, first-order logic), but no further background in linguistics or the theory of computation. It uses recent ideas from subregular complexity, formalized …
Subregular Linguistics for…well, Linguists
read moreAbstract Subregular linguistics is a recent research program that draws heavily from formal language theory but enjoys two noteworthy traits:
- the key concepts are intuitive and easy to visualize without the use of any mathematics, and
- its computational machinery is very sensitive to …
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 …
Subregular Linguistics for Linguists
read moreAbstract 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 …
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Features: More Trouble Than They’re Worth?
read moreAbstract 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 …
C-Command Dependencies as TSL String Constraints
read moreAbstract 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 …
Sensing Tree Automata as a Model of Syntactic Dependencies
read moreAbstract 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 …
Sensing Tree Automata as a Model of Syntactic Dependencies
read moreAbstract 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 …
Subregular Syntax: The What, How, and Why
read moreAbstract 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 …
The Surprising Simplicity of Syntax: Derivation Trees, Subregular Complexity, and What It Implies for Language and Cognition
read moreAbstract 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 …
C-Command Dependencies as TSL String Constraints
read moreAbstract 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 …
Adjunction to Movement Paths: Floating Quantifiers as the Little Brother of Parasitic Gaps
read moreAbstract 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 …
Tiers and Relativized Locality Across Language Modules
read moreAbstract Heinz and Idsardi (2013) draw attention to a profound computational difference between syntax and phonology: phonology only requires regular computations over strings (Johnson 1972 …
Why Movement Comes for Free Once You Have Adjunction
read moreAbstract 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 …
Locality Domains and Phonological c-Command over Strings
read moreAbstract 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 …
Derivations as Representations: News from the Computational Frontier
read moreAbstract 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 …
One Reason to Move, a Million Reasons to Be an Island: Third-Factor Explanations from Computational Syntax
read moreAbstract 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 …
Locality Domains and Phonological c-Command over Strings
read moreAbstract 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 …
Syntax in Phonology? C-Command over Strings
It’s a (Sub-)regular Conspiracy: Locality and Computation in Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, and Semantics
read moreAbstract 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 …
Fragments of First-Order Logic for Linguistic Structures
read moreAbstract 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 …
Computational Parallels Across Language Modules
read moreAbstract 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 …
A Computational Guide to the Dichotomy of Features and Constraints
read moreAbstract 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 …
Computational Lessons from and for Language
read moreAbstract 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 …
Adjuncts, Conjuncts, Ojuncts: Deriving Strong Island Constraints
read moreAbstract 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 …
Formal Processing Theory, or Parsing Without Parsers
read moreAbstract 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 …
A Hidden Consensus: Computational Invariants of Minimalist Syntax
read moreAbstract 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 …
A Computational Guide to the Dichotomy of Features and Constraints
read moreAbstract 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 …
Dependencies in Syntax and Phonology: A Computational Comparison
Adjuncts, Islands, Algebra (with a Sprinkling of Semantics)
Beyond the Apparent: Cognitive Parallels Between Syntax and Phonology
read moreAbstract 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 …
Optionality Implies Islandhood
Islands Without Islands
Computational Computational Linguistics
Local and Transderivational Constraints in Syntax and Semantics
read moreAbstract 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 …
The Syntactic Algebra of Adjuncts
read moreAbstract 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 …
The Syntactic Algebra of Adjuncts
read moreAbstract 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 …
The Price of Freedom: Why Adjuncts Are Islands
read moreAbstract 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 …
Constraints Emerge from Merge
Concealed Reference-Set Computation: How Syntax Escapes the Parser’s Clutches
read moreAbstract 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 …
Optimality Is Not a Race: Against a Performance-Based View of Reference-Set Computation
read moreAbstract 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 …
Lost in Translation: A Formal Model of Merge-over-Move and Its Implications for the Language Faculty
read moreAbstract 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 …
Concealed Reference-Set Computation or How Syntax Escapes the Parser’s Clutches
read moreAbstract 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 …
A Tree Transducer Model of Reference-Set Computation
read moreAbstract 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 …