Professor

Course Materials:

Research Interests

Natural language syntax and grammatical theory; Mathematical linguistics; Formal, computational and empirical studies of language acquisition and processing

On-going Projects

My research aims to apply insights from mathematical formalization and computational modeling to issues in theoretical linguistics, language processing and acquisition.  

My work in the area of theoretical linguistics focuses primarily on the relationship between constraints on natural language grammar and notions of mathematical and computational restrictiveness.  Most of my work to date has focused on issues in syntax.  For some time, I have been investigating the implications of adopting the Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG) formalism into syntactic theory. As documented in my book and in a number of papers, I have shown that the restrictiveness of the TAG formalism's operations for building phrase structure derives a number of non-trivial properties of human grammar, and yields elegant and explanatory analyses of a considerable range of phenomena.  Another strand of my work studies alternative characterizations of syntactic structure: together with K. Vijay-Shanker and other colleagues, I explore the wide-ranging mathematical and linguistic implications of taking phrase markers to be defined in terms of a primitive c-command relation.  Together with Giorgio Satta, I have begun to venture  into the domain of phonology as well, with a first attempt at characterizing the mathematical properties of Optimality Theory.  

Such theoretical work serves as a springboard for my investigations of issues in language acquisition and processing. I have shown, for instance, that the TAG conception of syntactic derivation, particularly the difference it maintains between different types of operations for phrase structure composition, allows us to characterize aspects of the time course of grammatical acquisition, providing an intriguing link between acquisition difficulty and formal complexity.  Similarly, in collaboration with Bill Badecker, I am currently developing a model of sentence planning, in which the TAG operations once again play a central role.  

Finally, in an NSF-funded project with Bill Badecker and Don Mathis, I am studying the degree to which connectionist models of language learning are capable of drawing correct inductive inferences about detailed properties of grammar, in the domains of anaphoric reference and displacement, and the ability of such models to exploit statistical regularities to overcome classical arguments from the poverty of the stimulus.

Representative Publications

Many of the papers listed below are linked to on-line versions for those with access rights to the relevant journals.  For those without, I also provide links to pre-publication versions in pdf format.

Syntactic Theory

Frank, R. 2002. Phrase Structure Composition and Syntactic Dependencies .  Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Frank, R. to appear. Notes on Phase Extension. Theoretical Linguistics. (pdf)

Frank, R. to appear. Lexicalized Syntax and Phonological Merge. (pdf)

Frank, R. 2006. Phase Theory and Tree Adjoining Grammar. Lingua. (pdf)

Frank, R. 2004. Restricting Grammatical Complexity. Cognitive Science. (pdf)

Frank, R. and A. Kroch.  1995.  Generalized Transformations and the Theory of Grammar.  Studia Linguistica 49:103-151. (pdf)

Frank, R. and K. Vijay-Shanker.  2001.  Primitive C-Command.  Syntax 4:164-204. (pdf)

Frank, R., P. Hagstrom and K. Vijay-Shanker. 2002.  Roots, Constituents and C-Command.  In A. Alexiadou (ed.), Theoretical Approaches to Universals, pp. 109-137, John Benjamins. (pdf)

Frank, R. and F. Kuminiak.  2000. Primitive Asymmetric C-Command Derives X-bar Theory.  In M. Hirotani, A. Coetzee, N. Hall and J.-Y. Kim (eds.) Proceedings of NELS 30 (volume 1), pp. 203-217, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst: GLSA. (pdf)

Frank, R., S. Kulick and K. Vijay-Shanker. 2000.  Monotonic C-Command: A New Perspective on Tree Adjoining Grammars. Grammars 3:151-173. (pdf)

Frank, R., Y.-S. Lee and O. Rambow. 1996.  Scrambling, Reconstruction and Subject Binding.  Rivista di Grammatica Generativa 21:67-106. (pdf)

Language acquisition and processing

Frank, R., D. Mathis, E. Gussine, J. Stowe, and M. Vindiola. 2006. Question Formation, Neural Networks and the Poverty of the Stimulus. AMLaP presentation (abstract, poster)

Frank, R., D. Mathis and W. Badecker. 2004. The Acquisition of Anaphora by Simple Recurrent Networks. Manuscript. (pdf)

Frank, R. and W. Badecker. 2001. Modeling Syntactic Encoding with Tree Adjoining Grammar: How grammar constrains production and production constrains grammar. CUNY sentence processing conference presentation (slides)

Frank, R. 2000.  From Regular to Context-Free to Mildly Context-Sensitive Tree Rewriting Systems: The Path of Child Language Acquisition.  In A. Abeillé and O. Rambow (eds.) Tree Adjoining Grammars: Formalisms, Linguistic Analysis and Processing,pp.101-120, CSLI Publications. (pdf)

Frank, R. and K. Vijay-Shanker. 2000.  Lowering Across Languages.  In M. de Vincenzi and V. Lombardo (eds.) Cross-linguistic Perspectives on Language Processing, pp. 63-87, Kluwer. (pdf)

Frank, R. 1998.  Structural Complexity and the Time Course of Grammatical Development.  Cognition 66:249-301. (pdf)

Frank, R. and S. Kapur. 1996.  On the Use of Triggers in Parameter Setting.  Linguistic Inquiry 27:623-660. (pdf)

Computational Phonology/Mathematical Linguistics

Frank, R. and G. Satta.  1998.  Optimality Theory and the Generative Complexity of Constraint Violability.  Computational Linguistics 24:307-315. (pdf)

Current & Past Students

Contact Information

rfrank@jhu.edu
Phone: 410.516.8699
Office: Krieger 145
Office Hours: by appointment