Papers

Theses

• Albro, Daniel M. 2005. Studies in Computational Optimality Theory, with Special Reference to the Phonological System of Malagasy. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA. First part describes a method for modeling Correspondence-Theoretic reduplication using weighted finite state machine constraints paired with Multiple Context Free Grammar representations and demonstrates that a faithful model of Correspondence Theory is problematic from the point of view of computational complexity. This part also describes an efficient representation for phonological forms. Second part gives a complete, implemented phonological grammar of Malagasy using LPM-OT, a framework with the power to model many opaque phenomena including Malagasy reduplication but without the computational problems posed by Correspondence Theory.
• Albro, Daniel M. 1998a. Evaluation, Implementation, and Extension of Primitive Optimality Theory. Master's Thesis, UCLA. Describes an implementation of Optimality Theory, plus an extensive formalized analysis of Turkish vowel harmony and disharmony.
• Albro, Daniel M. 1993. AMAR: A Computational Model of Autosegmental Phonology. Undergraduate Thesis, MIT. An implementation of autosegmental phonology, pre-Optimality Theory, with feature geometry. (Over time the LaTeX source for this thesis was garbled, and the diagrams were lost, so I have attempted to reconstruct the source and diagrams from scratch to make the following fairly nice PDF version, which is almost exactly identical to the definitive postscript version given above, but may contain some typos and infelicitous figures)

Conference Papers

• Albro, Daniel M.  2003.  A Large-Scale, Computerized Phonological Analysis of Malagasy.  Talk given at the 2003 meeting of the Linguistics Society of America.  Describes a computer-aided analysis of the phonological patterns of Malagasy, covering a large percentage of the vocabulary of Malagasy. Discusses large-scale and computer-aided analysis in OT in general a bit.
  
• Albro, Daniel M. 2000a. Taking Primitive Optimality Theory beyond the finite state. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Special Interest Group in Computational Phonology. Introduces the idea of meshing chart parsing of Multiple Context Free Grammars with formalized Optimality Theory where constraints are, as in OTP, represented as weighted finite state machines. The major purpose of this is to allow a Correspondence Theory analysis of reduplication. A shorter version of the paper can be found here.
• Albro, Daniel M. 2000b.  A probabilistic ranking learner for phonotactics.  Proceedings of the 2000 conference of the Linguistics Society of America.  Describes a Bayesian learner for phonotactic constraint rankings.  The learner can induce phonotactic rankings in the presence of noisy data and with surface-only data.
  
• Albro, Daniel M. 1998b.  Three formal extensions to Primitive Optimality Theory..  Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Linguistics. Implementations of existential implication, constraint disjunction, and local constraint conjunction within an OTP framework.
• Albro, Daniel M. and Berwick, Robert C. 1995.  AMAR: A model of computational phonology.  Proceedings of the 2nd Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics Phonology Conference (HILP 2), Amsterdam. A talk about the material of my undergraduate thesis, which see.

Unpublished Manuscripts (Talks, etc.)

• Albro, Daniel M. 2002a.  An Earley-Style Parser for Multiple Context-Free Grammars.  Unpublished manuscript.  Unlike the 2000a version, this one works. In exchange for complete coverage, the time complexity of this one is higher.
  
• Albro, Daniel M. 2002b.  A large-scale, computerized phonological analysis of Malagasy.  Unpublished manuscript.  Talk given on the same subject as the LSA talk to appear (see above), but from a primarily computational point of view, and expanded from that one.
  
• Albro, Daniel M. 2000a. An Earley-style Recognition Algorithm for MCFGs.  Unpublished manuscript.  An Earley-style chart parser for MCFGs with interesting time complexity characteristics.  Unfortunately it only works for a subclass of MCFGs (Multiple Context-Free Grammars).
• Albro, Daniel M. 2000b.  Some learnability algorithms for phonotactics. Unpublished manuscript.  Extended description of the algorithm described in A probabilistic ranking learner for phonotactics(above), plus speculation and further algorithms.
  
• Albro, Daniel M. 1999a. Notes on Primitive Optimality Theory (part 1). Unpublished manuscript.  Notes for a two-week class on OTP.
• Albro, Daniel M. 1999b. Notes on Primitive Optimality Theory (part 2). Unpublished manuscript.  Notes for a two-week class on OTP.  Introduces methods for modeling long-distance metathesis, morpheme alignment including infixation, paradigm uniformity (surface-to-surface correspondence), sympathy theory, and other advanced topics.
• Albro, Daniel M.  1999c.  The Implementation of UCLA OTP Constraints: Cases.  Unpublished manuscript. Describes the finite state machines necessary to model deletion and insertion correctly in Primitive Optimality Theory.
  
• Albro, Daniel M.  1998f.  Nawdem-English Dictionary with Examples.  Unpublished manuscript.  As far as I know, the only English-language dictionary of the Nawdem language (a Gur language spoken in Togo).
  
• Albro, Danie, M.  1998e.  Verb Classes and Verbal Suffixation in Nawdem.  Unpublished manuscript.  A morphological analysis of Nawdem verbs.
  
• Albro, Daniel M.  1998d.  Some Investigations into the Structure of DPs in Nawdem.  Unpublished manuscript.  An antisymmetric analysis of Nawdem DP structure.
  
• Albro, Daniel M.  1998c.  The Data Pattern of Relative Clauses in Nawdem.  Unpublished manuscript.  Lays out what relative clauses look like in Nawdem, with examples.
  
• Albro, Daniel M. 1997a. A Morpho-Phonological Learner. Unpublished manuscript. Describes an algorithm that can learn morphology in the presence of obscuring phonology.
• Albro, Daniel M.  1997b.  Phonological correspondence as a tool for historical analysis: An algorithm for word alignment. Unpublished manuscript.  An algorithm that aligns forms (words) based on their phonological features rather than orthography.
  
• Albro, Daniel M. 1996a. POSCLASS: An Automated Morphological Analyzer. Unpublished manuscript. Describes a morphological learner that can find morpheme position classes (but needs to be given phonemic, non-allomorphic data).
• Albro, Daniel M.  1996b.  Review of Tone in Mituku.  Unpublished manuscript.  A review of John Goldsmith's paper.
  
• Albro, Daniel M.  1996c.  Notes on Implementing Optimality Theory.  Unpublished manuscript(s).  Of historical interest only, mostly to me. My original proposals for implementing Optimality Theory using manipulations of logical models. Would have been too complex.
  
• Albro, Daniel M. 1995.  Synthesizing intonation and stress for English.  Unpublished manuscript.  Describes modifications made to rsynth, a public-domain speech synthesizer, to add English intonation and stress patterns, based on punctuation cues.
  
• Albro, Daniel M. 1993. An Elementary Esperanto Primer. Unpublished manuscript. A textbook and glossary for Esperanto, used in courses taught by the MIT Societo por Esperanto.

Second-author Listings

• Teal, Tracy, Albro, Daniel M., Stabler, Edward P., and Taylor, Charles E.  (1999).  Compression and Adaptation.   In D. Floreano, J. Nicoud and F. Mondada, editors, Advances of Artificial Life (Proceedings of the 5th European Conference on Artificial Life), number 1674 in Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, pages 709-719. Springer.  An MDL approach, using a hill-climbing search, to learning finite state grammars of simple languages (starting with a prefix-tree automaton and generalizing by combining states). I wrote most of the code for the project (Tracy wrote the top-level drivers and participated in writing the lower-level code) and participated in the design, but did not write the actual paper.
  

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