Skip to main content

Inferring Grammars for Mildly Context Sensitive Languages in Polynomial-Time

  • Conference paper
Grammatical Inference: Algorithms and Applications (ICGI 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 4201))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Natural languages contain regular, context-free, and context-sensitive syntactic constructions, yet none of these classes of formal languages can be identified in the limit from positive examples. Mildly context-sensitive languages are able to represent some context-sensitive constructions, those most common in natural languages, such as multiple agreement, crossed agreement, and duplication. These languages are attractive for natural language applications due to their expressiveness, and the fact that they are not fully context-sensitive should lead to computational advantages as well. We realize one such computational advantage by presenting the first polynomial-time algorithm for inferring Simple External Context Grammars, a class of mildly context-sensitive grammars, from positive examples.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Quine, W.V.O.: Word and object. MIT Press, Cambridge (1960)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  2. Chomsky, N.: Reflections on Language. Pantheon, New York (1975)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Gold, E.M.: Language identification in the limit. Information and Control 10, 447–474 (1967)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  4. Marcus, G.F.: Negative evidence in language acquisition. Cognition 46, 53–85 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Makinen, E.: On the structural grammatical inference problem for some classes of context-free grammars. Information Processing Letters 42, 1–5 (1992)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. Oates, T., Desai, D., Bhat, V.: Learning k-reversible context-free grammars from positive structural examples. In: Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Conference on Machine Learning (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Makinen, E.: Inferring regular languages by merging nonterminals. TR A-19987-6, Department of Computer Science, University of Tampere (1997)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Oates, T., Armstrong, T., Harris, J., Nejman, M.: On the relationship between lexical semantics and syntax for the inference of context-free grammars. In: Proceedings of AAAI, pp. 431–436 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Kudlek, M., Martn-Vide, C., Mateescu, A., Mitrana, V.: Contexts and the concept of mild context-sensitivity. In: Linguistics and Philosophy 26, pp. 703–725 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Becerra-Bonache, L., Yokomori, T.: Learning mild context-sensitiveness: Toward understanding children’s language learning. In: Paliouras, G., Sakakibara, Y. (eds.) ICGI 2004. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 3264, pp. 53–64. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Oates, T., Armstrong, T., Bonache, L.B., Atamas, M. (2006). Inferring Grammars for Mildly Context Sensitive Languages in Polynomial-Time. In: Sakakibara, Y., Kobayashi, S., Sato, K., Nishino, T., Tomita, E. (eds) Grammatical Inference: Algorithms and Applications. ICGI 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 4201. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11872436_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11872436_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-45264-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45265-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics