English

A Biologically Plausible Parser

Computation and Language 2021-08-05 v1

Abstract

We describe a parser of English effectuated by biologically plausible neurons and synapses, and implemented through the Assembly Calculus, a recently proposed computational framework for cognitive function. We demonstrate that this device is capable of correctly parsing reasonably nontrivial sentences. While our experiments entail rather simple sentences in English, our results suggest that the parser can be extended beyond what we have implemented, to several directions encompassing much of language. For example, we present a simple Russian version of the parser, and discuss how to handle recursion, embedding, and polysemy.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2108.02189,
  title  = {A Biologically Plausible Parser},
  author = {Daniel Mitropolsky and Michael J. Collins and Christos H. Papadimitriou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.02189},
  year   = {2021}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-24T04:50:01.613Z