Mathematical linguistics

interdisciplinary field

set of strings of symbols that may be constrained by rules that are specific to it; words whose letters are taken from an alphabet and are well-formed according to a specific set of rules

theory in linguistics

structure of a formal language

Phonotactics (from Ancient Greek and ) is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes. Phonotactics defines permissible syllable structure, consonant clusters and vowel sequences by means of phonotactic constraints.

ordered, rooted tree that represents the syntactic structure of a string according to some context-free grammar

subdiscipline of mathematical linguistics that investigates languages using statistical methods to formulate language laws

linguistic model proposing that the observed forms of language arise from the optimal satisfaction of conflicting constraints

Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a proto-language. It is to be distinguished from glottochronology, which attempts to use lexicostatistical methods to estimate the length of time since two or more languages diverged from a common earlier proto-language. This is merely one application of lexicostatistics, however; other applications of it may not share the assumption of a constant rate

branch of applied mathematics

systematic formalization of a phonological process

study of meaning in natural languages

family of formalisms in natural language syntax motivated by the principle of compositionality and organized according to the view that syntactic constituents should generally combine as functions or according to a function-argument relationship