A Procedure for Inferring a Minimalist Lexicon from an SMT Model of a Language Acquisition Device

Sagar Indurkhya
Proceedings of 16th edition of the International Conference on Grammatical Inference, PMLR 217:35-58, 2023.

Abstract

We introduce a constraint-based procedure for inferring a Minimalist Grammar (MG) that falls within the “Logic Grammar” framework. The procedure, implemented as a working computer program, takes as input an MG lexicon and a sequence of sentences paired with their semantic representation, and outputs an MG lexicon that is a superset of the input lexicon and that yields for each input sentence a syntatic structure encoding the associated semantic representation. The procedure operates by first constructing an SMT model of a language acquisition device that is constrained by the input lexicon and the (sentence, semantic-representation) pairs, and then using an SMT-solver to identify a model-solution in which the lexicon is optimized for parsimony. We show how the procedure can be used to form a computational model of a child language learner, presenting two experiments in which the procedure is used for instantaneous and incremental acquisition of an MG lexicon, and find that the optimal MG lexicons inferred by the procedure yield derivations that agree with the prescriptions of contemporary theories of minimalist syntax.

Cite this Paper

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v217-indurkhya23a, title = {A Procedure for Inferring a Minimalist Lexicon from an SMT Model of a Language Acquisition Device }, author = {Indurkhya, Sagar}, booktitle = {Proceedings of 16th edition of the International Conference on Grammatical Inference}, pages = {35--58}, year = {2023}, editor = {Coste, François and Ouardi, Faissal and Rabusseau, Guillaume}, volume = {217}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {10--13 Jul}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v217/indurkhya23a/indurkhya23a.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v217/indurkhya23a.html}, abstract = {We introduce a constraint-based procedure for inferring a Minimalist Grammar (MG) that falls within the “Logic Grammar” framework. The procedure, implemented as a working computer program, takes as input an MG lexicon and a sequence of sentences paired with their semantic representation, and outputs an MG lexicon that is a superset of the input lexicon and that yields for each input sentence a syntatic structure encoding the associated semantic representation. The procedure operates by first constructing an SMT model of a language acquisition device that is constrained by the input lexicon and the (sentence, semantic-representation) pairs, and then using an SMT-solver to identify a model-solution in which the lexicon is optimized for parsimony. We show how the procedure can be used to form a computational model of a child language learner, presenting two experiments in which the procedure is used for instantaneous and incremental acquisition of an MG lexicon, and find that the optimal MG lexicons inferred by the procedure yield derivations that agree with the prescriptions of contemporary theories of minimalist syntax.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T A Procedure for Inferring a Minimalist Lexicon from an SMT Model of a Language Acquisition Device %A Sagar Indurkhya %B Proceedings of 16th edition of the International Conference on Grammatical Inference %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2023 %E François Coste %E Faissal Ouardi %E Guillaume Rabusseau %F pmlr-v217-indurkhya23a %I PMLR %P 35--58 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v217/indurkhya23a.html %V 217 %X We introduce a constraint-based procedure for inferring a Minimalist Grammar (MG) that falls within the “Logic Grammar” framework. The procedure, implemented as a working computer program, takes as input an MG lexicon and a sequence of sentences paired with their semantic representation, and outputs an MG lexicon that is a superset of the input lexicon and that yields for each input sentence a syntatic structure encoding the associated semantic representation. The procedure operates by first constructing an SMT model of a language acquisition device that is constrained by the input lexicon and the (sentence, semantic-representation) pairs, and then using an SMT-solver to identify a model-solution in which the lexicon is optimized for parsimony. We show how the procedure can be used to form a computational model of a child language learner, presenting two experiments in which the procedure is used for instantaneous and incremental acquisition of an MG lexicon, and find that the optimal MG lexicons inferred by the procedure yield derivations that agree with the prescriptions of contemporary theories of minimalist syntax.
APA
Indurkhya, S.. (2023). A Procedure for Inferring a Minimalist Lexicon from an SMT Model of a Language Acquisition Device . Proceedings of 16th edition of the International Conference on Grammatical Inference, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 217:35-58 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v217/indurkhya23a.html.

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