Parsing in the Minimalist Program: On SOV Languages and Relativization

I examine computational issues in the processing of SOV languages in the probe-goal theory of the Minimalist Program. A theory that minimizes search, Such as the probe-goal theory, provides a strong linguistic basis For the investigation of efficient parsing architecture. For parsing, two main design challenges are presented: (i) how to limit search while incrementally recovering structure from input Without the benefit of a pre-determined lexical array, and (ii) how to collie Up with a system that not only correctly resolves parsing ambiguities, but does so with mechanisms that are architecturally Justified. I take as the starting point all existing probe-goal parser with features that allow it to compute Syntactic representation Without recourse to derivation history search. I extend this parser to handle pre-nominal relative clauses of the sort found in SOV languages. I provide a unified computational account of facts on possessor (and non-possessor) relativization and processing preferences in Turkish, Japanese, and Korean.