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An Elementary Proof of the Peters-Ritchie Theorem

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The Formal Complexity of Natural Language

Part of the book series: Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy ((SLAP,volume 33))

Abstract

The mathematical results about various classes of transformational grammars continue to play a role in linguistic discussions. Peters and Ritchie (1973a) proved that transformational grammars of the “standard” sort with a context-sensitive base were equivalent to unrestricted rewriting systems (equivalently, Turing machines) in their weak generative capacity, that is, that there was such a grammar for every recursively enumerable language. The proof can be presented informally and is easy to grasp (see Bach, 1974, for an informal presentation of the proof).

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References

  • Bach, Emmon (1974). Syntactic Theory. New York.

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  • Peters, Stanley and R. W. Ritchie (1973a). ‘On the Generative Power of Transformational Grammars.’ Information Science, 6: 49–83.

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  • Peters, P. Stanley Jr., and R. W. Ritchie (1973b). ‘Nonfiltering and Local-filtering Transformational Grammars.’ In K. J. Hintikka, J. M. E. Moravcsik, and P. Suppes, eds., Approaches to Natural Language. Dordrecht.

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© 1987 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland

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Bach, E., Marsh, W. (1987). An Elementary Proof of the Peters-Ritchie Theorem. In: Savitch, W.J., Bach, E., Marsh, W., Safran-Naveh, G. (eds) The Formal Complexity of Natural Language. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 33. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3401-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3401-6_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-55608-047-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-3401-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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