8
votes
Accepted
What is the “Chomsky hierarchy”?
In the 50's, Chomsky set out to devise a mathematical theory of language, which resulted in classifying kinds of production rules. For example, if all rules in a grammar are of the form A → a A, or A →...
- 83.3k
7
votes
Accepted
Where to start if you want to do Chomsky style NLP?
I hadn't heard the term "statistical theory (of language)", but it seems to be a misnomer. I gather from your references that you take some data and use it to estimate the parameters of some ...
- 12.5k
5
votes
Is Panini's grammar regular in the same sense as that present in the Chomsky hierarchy?
This page explains the concept of "regular expression". Also note this discussion of "regex" features available in e.g. Word's regex search and replace function, which are beyond ...
- 83.3k
4
votes
Context-free grammars
Sometimes technical descriptions are made with technical vocabulary neologisms in order to capture complicated and nuanced concepts which might be ungainly to convey correctly with simpler non-...
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4
votes
Why does Chomsky consider recursion in language to be a "narrow" ability unique to humans?
First you need to understand what recursion is, especially as applicable to linguistic structure. It is typically understood (defined) as the situation where a type α is defined in terms of type α. ...
- 83.3k
4
votes
What is the “Chomsky hierarchy”?
I’m still learning, but I can give it a stab.
These ideas probably originate from Chomsky’s work in the late 1950’s to mid 1960’s.
I do not know how it precipitated, but it appears Chomsky’s teacher ...
- 590
3
votes
Accepted
What contemporary theories attempt to explain why languages have phonotactic restrictions instead of permitting any phonemic combinations?
Step 1 is to say what theories there are of the nature of so-called phonotactic constraints. Phase 1 was Morpheme Structure Rules, which held that lexical items could be partially specified for ...
- 83.3k
3
votes
Is Panini's grammar regular in the same sense as that present in the Chomsky hierarchy?
The following paper by Penn and Kiparsky specifically addresses your question:
Penn, Gerald, and Paul Kiparsky. "On Panini and the Generative Capacity of Contextualized Replacement Systems." ...
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2
votes
Is phonology context free?
The only issue with encoding phonological alternations in CFG is unbounded dependencies: in whatever way GPSG manages that issue, that would be required for phonological relations as well. In ...
- 83.3k
2
votes
Do humans differ from other animals by being able to push and pop memory?
I'm sure you know more about this than I do, but problems like center embedding make me question whether push/pop memory is a useful abstraction for human brain. Quoting Wikipedia:
A man that a ...
- 1,111
2
votes
Where to start if you want to do Chomsky style NLP?
Are you familiar with any of the HPSG or lexicalist approaches to NLP that came about in the 90s or anything? This is strictly non-chomsky, non-transformational but it at least would give you some ...
- 21
1
vote
Is phonology context free?
I don't think phonological rules are context-free. The earliest speech synthesis techniques like formant synthesis and diphone selection synthesis where either each phone or diphone could be run on a ...
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1
vote
Is phonology context free?
In fact, something even more restricted the a Context Free Grammar, namely a Finite State Transducer (FST), has been successfully employed in research on phonology and on sound shifts in historical ...
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1
vote
Context-free grammars
CFG (context free phrase structure grammar) is important in linguistics, even fundamental, because it is what allows us to describe natural language expressions with hierarchical tree structures, ...
- 12.5k
1
vote
Context-free grammars
There are no fundamental properties. Some/most (?) natural languages are mildly context-sensitive to allow for features such as cross-serial dependencies. Pure context-free grammars are too cumbersome ...
- 2,590
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