On Arguments Against the Empirical Adequacy of Finite State Grammar

Abstract

In the first part of this paper, two arguments, one by Chomsky, and one by Bar-Hillel and Shamir, are examined in detail and rejected. Both arguments purport to show that the structure of English precludes its having a finite state grammar which correctly enumerates just the well formed sentences of English.In the latter part of the paper I consider the problem of supporting claims about the structure and properties of a natural language when no grammar for the language has yet been accepted.