Well-nestedness properly subsumes strict derivational minimalism

Makoto Kanazawa, Jens Michaelis, Sylvain Salvati, Ryo Yoshinaka

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Minimalist grammars (MGs) constitute a mildly context-sensitive formalism when being equipped with a particular locality condition (LC), the shortest move condition. In this format MGs define the same class of derivable string languages as multiple context-free grammars (MCFGs). Adding another LC to MGs, the specifier island condition (SPIC), results in a proper subclass of derivable languages. It is rather straightforward to see this class is embedded within the class of languages derivable by some well-nested MCFG (MCFG wn ). In this paper we show that the embedding is even proper. We partially do so adapting the methods used in [13] to characterize the separation of MCFG wn -languages from MCFG-languages by means of a "simple copying" theorem. The separation of strict derivational minimalism from well-nested MCFGs is then characterized by means of a "simple reverse copying" theorem. Since for MGs, well-nestedness seems to be a rather ad hoc restriction, whereas for MCFGs, this holds regarding the SPIC, our result may suggest we are concerned here with a structural difference between MGs and MCFGs which cannot immediately be overcome in a non-stipulated manner.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLogical Aspects of Computational Linguistics - 6th International Conference, LACL 2011, Proceedings
Pages112-118
Number of pages7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011
Event6th International Conference on Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics, LACL 2011 - Montpellier, France
Duration: 2011 Jun 292011 Jul 1

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume6736 LNAI
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference6th International Conference on Logical Aspects of Computational Linguistics, LACL 2011
Country/TerritoryFrance
CityMontpellier
Period11/6/2911/7/1

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