A Case Study of the Convergence of Mildly Context-Sensitive Formalisms for Natural Language Syntax: from Minimalist Grammars to Multiple Context-Free Grammars
Soumis en tant que rapport de recherche INRIA Futurs - Projet SIGNESThe present work is set in the field of natural language syntactic parsing. We present the concept of "mildly context-sensitive" grammar formalisms, which are full-fetched and efficient for syntactic parsing. We summarize a number of these formalisms' definitions, together with the relations between one another, and, most importantly, a survey of known equivalences. The conversion of Edward Stabler's Minimalist Grammars into Multiple Context-Free Grammars (MCFG) is presented in particular detail, along with a study of the complexity of this procedure and of its implications for parsing. This report is an adaptation of the French Master thesis that bears the same name, from Bordeaux 1 University, June 2006
