The complexity of trees, universal grammar and economy conditions
Chris Collins
Abstract
<title xmlns="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/JATS1" /> <p xmlns="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/JATS1">In this squib, I argue that the child faces a severe computational complexity problem in parsing even the simplest of trees: the number of possible trees consistent with UG grows exponentially as a function of the number of lexical items. Economy conditions have the result of drastically decreasing the complexity of the parsing task. I also discuss the relationship between UG, I-language, economy conditions and explanatory adequacy.
Topics & Concepts
ParsingTask (project management)Function (biology)Universal grammarGrammarComputer scienceNatural language processingLinguisticsArtificial intelligenceBiologyEconomicsPhilosophyManagementEvolutionary biologyNatural Language Processing TechniquesSyntax, Semantics, Linguistic VariationNeurobiology of Language and Bilingualism