Related papers: On the Relation between Context-Free Grammars and …
Futrell and Mahowald (2025) frame the success of neural language models (LMs) as supporting gradient, usage-based linguistic theories. I argue that LMs can also instantiate theories based on formal structures - the types of theories seen in…
We present a formal framework for the development of a family of discriminative learning algorithms for Probabilistic Context-Free Grammars (PCFGs) based on a generalization of criterion-H. First of all, we propose the H-criterion as the…
We introduce the syntactic formalism of the \textit{Cambridge Grammar of the English Language} (CGEL) to the world of treebanking through the CGELBank project. We discuss some issues in linguistic analysis that arose in adapting the…
A filtration of a formal language L by a sequence s maps L to the set of words formed by taking the letters of words of L indexed only by s. We consider the languages resulting from filtering by all arithmetic progressions. If L is regular,…
Language models can be sampled multiple times to access the distribution underlying their responses, but existing methods cannot efficiently synthesize rich epistemic signals across different long-form responses. We introduce Consensus…
The paper describes a parser for Categorial Grammar which provides fully word by word incremental interpretation. The parser does not require fragments of sentences to form constituents, and thereby avoids problems of spurious ambiguity.…
Multiple (simple) context-free tree grammars are investigated, where "simple" means "linear and nondeleting". Every multiple context-free tree grammar that is finitely ambiguous can be lexicalized; i.e., it can be transformed into an…
Two formalisms, both based on context-free grammars, have recently been proposed as a basis for a non-uniform random generation of combinatorial objects. The former, introduced by Denise et al, associates weights with letters, while the…
We study regular expressions that use variables, or parameters, which are interpreted as alphabet letters. We consider two classes of languages denoted by such expressions: under the possibility semantics, a word belongs to the language if…
Language sciences rely less and less on formal syntax as their base. The reason is probably its lack of psychological reality, knowingly avoided. Philosophers of science call for a paradigm shift in which explanations are by mechanisms, as…
Compositional generalization is one of the main properties which differentiates lexical learning in humans from state-of-art neural networks. We propose a general framework for building models that can generalize compositionally using the…
Classic grammars and regular expressions can be used for a variety of purposes, including parsing, intent detection, and matching. However, the comparisons are performed at a structural level, with constituent elements (words or characters)…
A test set for a formal language (set of strings) L is a subset T of L such that for any two string homomorphisms f and g defined on L, if the restrictions of f and g on T are identical functions, then f and g are identical on the entire L.…
Existing technology can parse arbitrary context-free grammars, but only a single, static grammar per input. In order to support more powerful syntax-extension systems, we propose reflective grammars, which can modify their own syntax during…
This essay proposes an interpretive analogy between large language models (LLMs) and quasicrystals, systems that exhibit global coherence without periodic repetition, generated through local constraints. While LLMs are typically evaluated…
Phrase-structure grammars are effective models for important syntactic and semantic aspects of natural languages, but can be computationally too demanding for use as language models in real-time speech recognition. Therefore, finite-state…
Grammar refers to the system of rules that governs the structural organization and the semantic relations among linguistic units such as sentences, phrases, and words within a given language. In natural language processing, there remains a…
The hyperedge replacement grammar (HRG) formalism is a natural and well-known generalization of context-free grammars. HRGs inherit a number of properties of context-free grammars, e.g. the pumping lemma. This lemma turns out to be a strong…
In this paper we give instructions on how to write a minimalist grammar (MG). In order to present the instructions as an algorithm, we use a variant of context free grammars (CFG) as an input format. We can exclude overgeneration, if the…
Turkish has considerably freer word order than English. The interpretations of different word orders in Turkish rely on information that describes how a sentence relates to its discourse context. To capture the syntactic features of a free…