Deriving the Directionality Parameter in OT-LFG

Formal and computational aspects of optimality-theoretic syntax

In this dissertation, I propose a formal framework for stating in detail a class of Optimality-Theoretic models for syntax. I discuss empirical consequences of the key choices in the formalization and investigate computational properties of the models, in particular decidability of the parsing and generation tasks. The candidate analyses I assume are non-derivational, represented as tuples of p...

Input and Glue in OT-LFG

In glue logic (Dalrymple 1999, 2001, Asudeh 2004), LFG has found a reasonably stable but developing method for connecting syntactic structures to formal semantic intepretation. However current formulations of glue logic make the rather unsatisfactory move of divorcing grammatical features from any intrinsic connection with what are usually regarded as their meanings. Rather than directly connec...

Two Ways of Formalizing Ot Syntax in the Lfg Framework

Generation and Parsing in Optimality Theoretic Syntax Issues in the Formalization of Ot-lfg

OT Syntax - Decidability of Generation-based Optimization

Abstract In Optimality-Theoretic Syntax, optimization with unrestricted expressive power on the side of the OT constraints is undecidable. This paper provides a proof for the decidability of optimization based on constraints expressed with reference to local subtrees (which is in the spirit of OT theory). The proof builds on Kaplan and Wedekind’s (2000) construction showing that LFG generation ...