Hans-Peter Kolb:

    Macros for Minimalism?


    Abstract

    Mönnich (1997) has shown that non-recognizable sets of structures can - up to homomorphism - be coded context-freely. However, an application to linguistic theorizing of this highly abstract result is far from obvious. Using a simplified minimalist analysis of the germanic verb complex as the primary illustrative example it will explore the feasibility and identify the respective problems of trying to establish in a rigorous and effective way a direct relation (1) between a linguistic ``grammar'' and the set of structures generated by a ``lifted'' equivalent tree grammar, and (2) between the class of linguistic theories and their MSO counterparts over the derived alphabet.