Derivational minimalism in two regular and logical steps.
Jens Michaelis, Uwe Mönnich, Frank Morawietz · PUB – Publications at Bielefeld University (Bielefeld University) · 2000
In this paper we extend the work by Michaelis (1999) which shows how to encode an arbitrary Minimalist Grammar in the sense of Stabler (1997) into a weakly equivalent multiple contextfree grammar (MCFG).By viewing MCFG rules as terms in a free Lawvere theory we can translate a given MCFG into a regular tree grammar.The latter is characterizable by both a tree automaton and a corresponding formula in monadic second-order (MSO) logic.The trees of the resulting regular tree language are then unpacked into the intended "linguistic" trees with an MSO transduction based upon tree-walking automata.This two-step approach gives an operational as well as a logical description of the tree sets involved.