Minimalist Machine

Sandiway Fong, University of Arizona

Joint work with Jason Ginsburg.

Link to Jason's theory modeling page, including independently-developed Python code, is here

Introduction

The Minimalist Machine is a computer implementation of a theory within the Minimalist Program.

The project has several goals:

Example 1

John1 considers himself1 to be intelligent (Kayne-style Doubling Constituent (DC) analysis)
Stream: [john, d, he, self, intelligent, v_be, 'Tinf', consider, 'v*', 'T', c] derives:

c d John T(pres,[3,pl]) vunerg think T(pres,[3,pl]) ce d he T(pres,[3,pl]) vbe smart (frontier)
John -s think that he -s be smart (after morpheme realization)
John think -s that he be -s smart (after affix-hop)
John think -s that he be -s smart (after morpheme realization, stage 2)
John thinks that he is smart (spellout)

See full derivation for the example here.
Note: strikethrough, e.g. self he d John, is used to indicate unpronounced copies.

Example 2

There are likely to be several prizes awarded (expletive passive with leftwards TH/EX) (Chomsky 2001)
Stream: [prizes, several, award, prt, 'v~', there, 'Tinf', likely, v_be, 'T', c] derives:

c there T(pres,[3,pl]) vbe likely to v~ several prizes prt award (frontier)
there -re be likely to be several prizes -en award (after morpheme realization)
there be -re likely to be several prizes award -en (after affix-hop)
there be -re likely to be several prizes award -en (after morpheme realization, stage 2)
there are likely to be several prizes awarded (spellout)
See full derivation for the example here.
Note: strikethrough, e.g. several prizes, is used to indicate unpronounced copies.

Core architecture highlights:

Grammar

Examples:

Head uFeatures iFeatures Other Spellout (English)
v* phi:Person,Number ef(theta)
value acc Case
vunerg ef(theta)
prt phi: Number
Case
ef -ed
v~, v~unacc ef
check theta
be
vbe ef
Preference:
move over external merge
be
v have
prog ef -ing
perf -en
vRoot lexical verbs
(selected by a v)
T phi:Person,Number ef
value nom Case
[1.sg]: -m, [2:sg]: -re, [3:sg]: -s,
[_,pl]: -re
Head uFeatures iFeatures Other Spellout (English)
Tpast phi:Person,Number ef
value nom Case
[1,sg]: -ed(sg), [1,pl]: -ed(pl),
[2,_]: -ed(pl), [3,sg]: -ed(sg),
[3,pl]: -ed(pl)
Tinf phi:Person,Number ef
value null Case
to
c Local Extent (LE) head
cQe Wh
T
ef(wh)
LE head
cQ, ceQ Wh
T
ef
LE head
do
ce T ef
LE head
q Case
N
phi:Person,Number
Wh
theta
d Case
N
phi:Person,Number
theta
value uD
self Case
N
phi:Person,Number
theta
LE head
release
-self (suffix)
Head uFeatures iFeatures Other Spellout (English)
there phi:Person noProject there (expletive)
's Case
N
phi:Person,Number
theta
ef(theta)
LE head
's
it Case phi:[3,sg] noProject it (expletive)
nRoot D phi:[3,sg] value uN lexical nouns
(phi-fs will percolate up)
G ef(theta)
to, from, on ef(theta)
value obq Case
to, from, on (dyadic preposition)
to, from, on .. value obq Case to, from, on .. (preposition)
crel rel
T
ef
LE head
drel Case
N
phi:Person, Number
theta
rel
cannot value uT
cannot value uD
whichrel, whatrel Case, N phi:Person, Number
theta
rel
value uT
cannot value uD
which, what

Notes:

  1. ef: (unrestricted) edge feature
  2. ef(theta/wh): edge position is restricted to theta-role bearing or wh-bearing syntactic objects.
  3. Local Extent (LE) head. (Similar idea to a phase head.)
    When fully projected, the phrase headed by the LE head defines a LE boundary.
    The current stack position will be marked (with a b = boundary) and further stack operations will not be able to search beyond the mark.

Derivations

For full step-by-step derivations, visit the following links.
(These webpages are automatically generated by my system.)
(Also, please visit Jason Ginsburg's page for Jason's derivations.)

Section Link
Basic sentence patterns
(Updated: Sep 21st 2015. Latest run: Sep 16th 2023.)
link
Derivation by Phase. Chomsky (2001).
(Updated: Sep 21st 2015. Latest run: Sep 16th 2023.)
link
On Phases. Chomsky (2008).
(Updated: September 21st 2015.)
link
T-to-C Movement: Causes and Consequences. Pesetsky & Torrego (2001).
(Updated: September 21st 2015)
link
Explaining TH/EX (Sobin, 2014)
and TH/EX, Agreement, and Case in Expletive Sentences (Sobin, Syntax: to appear).
(Updated: September 21st 2015)
link
Computation with doubling constituents: Pronouns and antecedents in Phase Theory. (Fong & Ginsburg, 2012).
(Updated: September 21st 2015)
link
Modeling of Coreference Relations in Multi-Object Constructions. (Fong & Ginsburg, 2012b).
(Updated: September 21st 2015.)
link
A New Approach to Tough-Constructions (Fong & Ginsburg,2014). (1) Doubling constituent approach
(Updated: September 21st 2015.)
link1
A New Approach to Tough-Constructions (Fong & Ginsburg,2014). (2) Case Theoretic approach.
(Updated: September 21st 2015.)
link2
On the computational modeling of English relative clauses (Fong & Ginsburg, 2023).
(Updated: Sept 21st 2015, Sep 17th 2023. Latest run: Sep 18th 2023.)
link
A Minimalist account of reconstruction asymmetries (Munn, 1994).
(Updated: September 21st 2015.)
link
Test cases from A Course in GB Syntax (Lasnik & Uriagereka,1988).
(Updated: September 21st 2015.)
link
Some Arabic examples (Monica Larcom & Sandiway Fong)
(Updated: April 24th 2015.)
link
Some Japanese examples (Gustave Hahn-Powell & Sandiway Fong) link
Persian (Trevor Sullivan & Sandiway Fong)
March 12th 2016.
link
Relative clause examples from Keenan 1987 (Fong & Ginsburg, ms.)
March 9th 2019.
link
Relative clause examples from Sag 1997 (Fong & Ginsburg, ms.)
August 22nd 2020.
link
Additional relative clause examples, including use of FormSet
August 7th 2023.
link

Relevant publications

(IN PRESS) On the computational modeling of English relative clauses. Fong, S. and J. Ginsburg.
Appendix: containing a list of Minimalist Machine operations and full derivations for all examples in the paper.
48 pages. Draft: RelClauseOL_vers18.pdf, Open Linguistics, De Gruyter.
2019 Towards a Minimalist Machine. Fong, S. and J. Ginsburg. In Minimalist Parsing Stabler, E.J. and R.C. Berwick (eds.). Oxford. 23 pages. Draft: 02-Berwick-Ch02-drv.pdf
2019 Combining linguistic theories in a Minimalist Machine. Ginsburg, J. and S. Fong. In Minimalist Parsing Stabler, E.J. and R.C. Berwick (eds.). 39-68. Oxford University Press. 30 pages. Draft: 03-Berwick-Ch03-drv.pdf
2013 A New Approach to Tough-Constructions. Fong, S. and J. Ginsburg. In Proceedings of the 31st West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL 31) Santana-LaBarge, R.E. (ed.). 180-188.Cascadilla Proceedings Project. 9 pages. paper3020.pdf

Code

The Minimalist Machine runs on macOS, Linux and Windows. Pre-compiled binaries are available.

It has a Graphical User Interface (GUI) built in Javascript/HTML that runs in any modern browser.

The theory is implemented in Prolog. We rely on the freely available SWI-Prolog, currently version 9, which you should also install. This code runs in a Terminal window.

The browser and the Prolog code communicate via a Websocket (WS) interface. Nothing extra needs to be installed for this.

Interested?

Download Machine.zip (3,178,802 bytes, uploaded 8/7/2023, the .zip file is a compressed directory).
Unzip this into a directory called Machine.

The Instructions tab has detailed step-by-step instructions on how to run the code.

Download the Software first. Then go here for easy, step-by-step instructions.

Application Programming Interface. Documented here.

Machine Actions are documented here.

A general glossary of terms is available here.