Analysis by synthesis in the light of recent developments in the theory of grammar

This paper describes an algorithm for finding all and only the structural descrip­ tions of any sentence with respect to a given grammar constructed in accordance with the theory of grammar which has been developed by linguists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — for the most part by N. Chomsky [1] — and which is discussed by E. S. Klima at this colloquium [2]. In an earlier paper [3], I described an analysis-by-synthesis algorithm for the class of grammars described by N. Chomsky in publications that had appeared prior to 1962 — especially his Syntactic structures [4]. In this paper, I assume a familiarity with the works [2], [3], and [4], restating parts of them only where it is necessary for clarity. My work toward a useful and efficient sentence-analysis routine has been based on three assumptions: