Transforming linear context-free rewriting systems into minimalist grammars

Abstract

The type of a minimalist grammar (MG) as introduced by Stabler [11,12] provides an attempt of a rigorous algebraic formalization of the new perspectives adopted within the linguistic framework of transformational grammar due to the change from GB-theory to minimalism. Michaelis [6] has shown that MGs constitute a subclass of mildly context-sensitive grammars in the sense that for each MG there is a weakly equivalent linear context-free rewriting system (LCFRS). However, it has been left open in [6], whether the respective classes of string languages derivable by MGs and LCFRSs coincide. This paper completes the picture by showing that MGs in the sense of [11] and LCFRSs give in fact rise to the same class of derivable string languages.