The Queens Grammar.

S. L. Lieman

ResearchPublished 1967

The famous eight-queens chess problem extended into the area of linguistics. The problem is presented and then generalized into a language over strings of integers. Various formalisms are shown to be able to describe this language, including arithmetical relations defined on each pair of integers in the string, programs for actually generating and parsing strings, and a relational grammar. It is shown that context-sensitive grammar and transformational grammar are likely to be capable of defining the language. The simplicity and elegance of the arithmetical formulation and the computer programs that are easily derived from it are contrasted to the counterintuitive properties of relational grammars, context-sensitive grammars, and transformational grammars that define the same language. A natural language counterpart to the Queens Language is given, and new measures of linguistic adequacy are defined. The implications of these new measures of adequacy to efforts for finding appropriate linguistic formalisms are discussed. 47 pp. Ref.

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Lieman, S. L., The Queens Grammar. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1967. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM5209.html.
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