In this paper we address the problem of classifying objects (e.g. person or car) and actions (e.g. hugging or eating) [2]. The more successful methods are based on a uniform pyramidal representation (SPM) built on a visual word vocabulary [1]. In this paper, we augment the classification by adding more flexible spatial information. This will be formulated more generally as inferring additional ...

The basic idea in PRINCIPLES AND PARAMETERS THEORY is to distinguish the invariants of human language (the principles) from the major points of crosslinguistic variation (the parameters). Both principles and parameters are taken to reflect innately determined, biological characteristics of the human brain (see UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR). In the course of normal child development, however, the two diver...

Remnant low-energy effects of Planck-scale Lorentz breaking in candidate fundamental theories typically include modified one-particle dispersion relations. Theoretical constraints on such modifications are discussed leading to the exclusion of a variety of previously considered Lorentz-violating parameters. In particular, the fundamental principle of coordinate independence, the role of an effe...

This paper discusses the feature checking mechanism of interrogative sentences in Japanese and Korean. We first focus on a phenomenon of omitting question markers in informal speech in Japanese and attempt to provide an account for it within the framework of Principles and Parameters approach. We argue that question markers can be omitted only if interrogative features of the sentence can be pr...

We discuss some issues arising in the evaluation of confidence intervals in the presence of nuisance parameters (systematic uncertainties) by means of direct Neyman construction in multi–dimensional space. While this kind of procedure provides rigorous coverage, it may be affected by large overcoverage, and/or produce results with counterintuitive behavior with respect to the uncertainty on the...

Standard linguistic analysis of syntax uses the T-model. This model requires the ordering: D-structure > S-structure > LF, where D-structure is the sentences deep structure, S-structure is its surface structure, and LF is its logical form. Between each of these representations there is movement which alters the order of the constituent words; movement is achieved using the principles and parame...

The paper assesses the consequences of gradience for approaches to variation based on the Principles and Parameters model. In particular, the discussion focuses on recent crosslinguistic results obtained through magnitude estimation, a methodology particularly suited to the study of gradient acceptability/grammaticality. Results on superiority and relativised minimality effects in questions are...

pappi is a multilingual, Prolog-based parsing system designed for implementing theories in the Principles-and-Parameters framework. This report describes the Japanese version of the system. In particular, it reviews how the core system can be extended to handle a variety of Japanese phenomena, including anti-superiority, indirect passives and potentials, o/ni -causative and dative subject const...

PETR HLINĚNÝ1,2,*, SANG-IL OUM3,7, DETLEF SEESE4 AND GEORG GOTTLOB5,6 Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University, Botanická 68a, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic VŠB, Technical University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic School of Mathematics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0160, USA Institute AIFB, University Karlsruhe (TH), D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany Oxford University Comput...