Doing Dutch Pronouns Automatically in Optimality Theory

Optimality Theory, markedness and second language syntax: the case of resumptive pronouns in relative clauses

Eckman, Fred R. 2004. Optimality Theory, markedness and second language syntax: the case of resumptive pronouns in relative clauses. Studies in Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology 10.1. 89–110. This paper proposes a constraint-based analysis for what is arguably the most interesting phenomenon in second language (L2) syntax, the occurrence of an L2 error pattern where the regularity cannot be e...

Argument Order Alternations in Dutch

We investigate the factors that influence argument order variations in Dutch, focusing on ditransitive verbs. Evidence from grammaticality judgments is complemented with evidence from the distributions of the alternants in corpora of spoken and written Dutch. We find that while the NP/PP alternation is influenced by weight, the direct object shift (DOS) in the dative alternation is bound to cer...

Elephants and Optimality Again

Children display a surprising delay in correctly resolving pronouns, while they employ Chomsky’s binding principles correctly in production and in resolving reflexives. We account for the mistakes as performance errors that are predicted by an Optimality Theoretical model implemented using simulated annealing. Our experiments suggest three novel explanations of the facts. Additionally, the Opti...

How Computer Selects Antecedent?

1. Introduction This study provides a computer-simulated optimal selection of antecedent of reflexive pronouns based on the Visual C++ computer programming language. The algorithm that I use for this implementation is based on the optimal theoretic approach to the proper interpretation of reflexive pronoun roughly adopted in Moon (1999). I show that the complex behavior of reflexive pronouns ca...

Optimality Of Monetary And Fiscal Policies In Iran: An Application Of The Stochastic Optimal Control Theory