Studies on Computational Complexity/Load as a Metric for the Economy Principles in the Theory of Generative Grammar

• Project/Area Number: 14510626
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 言語学・音声学
• Research Institution: Kyushu Institute of Technology
• Principal Investigator: TOYOSHIMA Takashi Kyushu Institute of Technology, Faculty of Computer Science and Systems Engineering, Associate Professor, 情報工学部, 助教授 (40311857)
• Project Period (FY): 2002 – 2005
• Project Status: Completed (Fiscal Year 2005)
• Budget Amount: ¥2,700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,700,000); Fiscal Year 2005: ¥600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥600,000); Fiscal Year 2004: ¥900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥900,000); Fiscal Year 2003: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000); Fiscal Year 2002: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
• Keywords: Generative Grammar / Minimalism / Economy Principles / Head Movement / Wh-Movement / Breton / Complexity Metric / Computational Complexity / 位相理論 / 演算量 / 派生経済性 / 語彙部分配列 / 非決定性線形時間 / 極小理論 / 経済性 / 構成素疑問詞移動 / 選択関数 / 無差別束縛 / 拡張条件 / 日本語 / 受動構文 / 非項移動

Research Abstract

Possibilities are investigated of the application of the computational complexity theory and the descriptive complexity theory in computer science and discrete mathematics, as the metric for the economy principles in the Minimalist Program, the current theoretical framework in the tradition of transformational generative grammar.
In order to measure the complexity of computational operations in human language, the nature of the operations itself needs to be determined, and the problematic head-to-head movement can be, and by the minimalist assumption, must be reformulated as head-to-spec movement, which yields better empirical coverage of phenomena noticed, but left unaccounted for in principled terms.
By reducing all the movement operations to just one that moves to a specifier position, it can be considered to be a species of the Merge operation. Then, in turn, we can begin to consider the computational complexity of the economy principles that employ just the two types of the Merge operation, Internal Merge and External Merge.
The economy principles in the Minimalist Program can be divided into two types, Derivational Economy and Representational Economy, both of which can be understood as discrete optimization problems. Once so understood, the issues of derivational economy become not of an either-or questions between local vs. global as often alluded in the literature, but rather whether local constraints can solve the global optimization problems, which is the nature of derivational system of human language.
It has been found that the notion of locality must be distinguished for derivational economy and representational economy, and the computational one-step "look-ahead" is essential for human language, contra commonly held views. What must be avoided is "look-far-ahead" of more than one step in computation, which inevitably ends up with combinatorial explosion of exponential order.

Research Products

• [Journal Article] Non-Finite Verb Fronting in South/West Slavic and Germanic (2006)
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: The 37^<th> Poznan Linguistic Meeting (PLM 2006) Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu : Poznan, Poland. (accepted for oral presentation on April 21, 2006)
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より
• [Journal Article] Dynamic Economy of Derivation (2006)
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: A Conference on Interfaces in Current Syntactic Theory : InterPhases. University of Cyprus : Nicosia, Cyprus. (accepted for oral presentation on May 18, 2006)
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より
• [Journal Article] Preemptive Move Toward Elimination of Lexical Subarray : Dynamic Economy (2005)
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: Proceedings of the Israel Association for Theoretical Linguistics World Wide Web 21
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
• [Journal Article] Preemptive Move Toward Elimination of Lexical Subarray : Dynamic Economy. (2005)
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: The Proceedings of the Israel Association for Theoretical Linguistics 21. World Wide Web : (http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/~english/IATL/21/)
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より
• [Journal Article] Preemptive Move Toward Elimination of Lexical Subarray : Dynamic Economy (2005)
  • Author(s): Takashi Toyoshima
  • Journal Title: Proceedings of the Israel Association for Theoretical Linguistics http://atar.mscc.huji.ac.il/~english/IATL/21/ 21 Pages: 19-19
• [Journal Article] Breton Verb-Aux Construction (2005)
  • Author(s): Takashi Toyoshima
  • Journal Title: Proceedings of the the Sixiemes Journees Nationales de Linguitique de Maroc : Bare Structures and Functional Projections (掲載予定)
• [Journal Article] Wh-Tideland (2004)
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: The 2nd International Theoretical East Asian Linguistics Workshop ポスター発表
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
• [Journal Article] Wh-Tideland (2004)
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: Poster presentation; The 2nd International Theoretical East Asian Linguistics Workshop. National Tsing Hua University : Hsinchu, Taiwan
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より
• [Journal Article] Breton VI Construction : Evidence for Head-to-Spec Movement
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: Proceedings of the II Encuentro de Gramatica Generativa (CD-ROM)(2003年12月脱稿済み)
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
• [Journal Article] Breton Verb-Aux Construction
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: Actes de Sixiemes Journees Linguitique Nationales de Maroc : Bare Structures and Functional Projections (近刊)(2005年2月脱稿済み)
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
• [Journal Article] Non-Finite Verb Fronting in South/West Slavic and Germanic
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: The 37th Poznan Linguistic Meeting (PLM2006) (口頭発表)(2006年4月21日予定:採択済)
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
• [Journal Article] Dynamic Economy of Derivation
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: A Conference on Interfaces in Current Syntactic Theory : InterPhases (口頭発表)(2006年5月18日予定:採択済)
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(和文)」より
• [Journal Article] Breton VI Construction : Evidence for Head-to-Spec Movement.
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: The Proceedings of the II Encuentro de Gramatica Generativa (CD-ROM)(To appear)(accepted 2003)
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より
• [Journal Article] Breton Verb-Aux Construction.
  • Author(s): Toyoshima, Takashi
  • Journal Title: Actes de Sixiemes Journees Linguitique Nationales de Maroc : Bare Structures and Functional Projections. (To appear) (accepted 2005)
  • Description: 「研究成果報告書概要(欧文)」より
• [Publications] Takashi Toyoshima: "Breton V1 Construction : Evidence for Head-to Spec Movement"The Proceedings of the Second Encuentro de Gramatica Generativa(仮). (未定)(脱稿済み).