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Parsing in the Minimalist Program: On SOV Languages and Relativization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Sandiway Fong
Sandiway Fong*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
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Abstract

I examine computational issues in the processing of SOV languages in the probe-goal theory of the Minimalist Program. A theory that minimizes search, such as the probe-goal theory, provides a strong linguistic basis for the investigation of efficient parsing architecture. For parsing, two main design challenges are presented: (i) how to limit search while incrementally recovering structure from input without the benefit of a pre-determined lexical array, and (ii) how to come up with a system that not only correctly resolves parsing ambiguities, but does so with mechanisms that are architecturally justified. I take as the starting point an existing probe-goal parser with features that allow it to compute syntactic representation without recourse to derivation history search. I extend this parser to handle pre-nominal relative clauses of the sort found in SOV languages. I provide a unified computational account of facts on possessor (and non-possessor) relativization and processing preferences in Turkish, Japanese, and Korean.

Résumé

Résumé

Je m’adresse ici à des questions d’ordre informatique dans le traitement des langues SOV à l’intérieur de la théorie sonde-cible (probe-goal) du programme minimaliste. Une théorie qui minimise l’effort de la fouille, telle que la théorie sonde-cible, donne une forte base linguistique pour l’investigation d’une architecture efficace des analyseurs syntagmatiques des langues naturelles.

Pour cette dernière, deux défis d’ordre conceptuel se présentent : (i) comment limiter la fouille par incréments tout en récupérant la structure des données d’entrée sans faire appel à un ensemble lexical prédéterminé et (ii) comment développer un système qui peut non seulement résoudre des ambiguïtés d’analyse, mais qui le fait sur la base de mécanismes qui sont justifiés par l’architecture. Comme point de départ, je prends un analyseur sonde-cible préexistant avec des traits qui permettent un calcul de la représentation syntaxique sans recours aux étapes dérivationelles antérieures de la fouille. J’étends l’application de cet analyseur aux relatives prénominales qui se trouvent dans les langues SOV. J’offre une analyse unifiée du traitement informatique de la relativisation des possesseurs (et non-possesseurs) et des préférences de traitement en turc, en japonais et en coréen.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 53 , Issue 2-3 , November 2008 , pp. 237 - 252
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association/Association canadienne de linguistique 2008 

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