Sandiway Fong

Interests

Research

Computational linguistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, games, search and theoretical linguistics.

Teaching

computational linguistics, syntax

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Chomsky, N., Seely, D., Berwick, R., Fong, S., Huybregts, M., Kitahara, H., McInnerney, A., & Sugimoto, Y. (2023). Merge and the Strong Minimalist Thesis. Cambridge. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009343244

Chapters

• Fong, S. (2014). Unification and Efficient Computation 2 in the Minimalist Program. In Language and Recursion(pp 129-138). Springer-Verlag.
• Fong, S., Malioutov, I., Berwick, R., & Yankama, B. (2013). Treebank Parsing and Knowledge of Language. In Cognitive and Computational Models of Language Acquisition(pp 133-172). New York: Springer-Verlag.
• Fong, S. -., & Ginsburg, J. (2012). Computation with doubling constituents: Pronouns and antecedents in Phase Theory. John Benjamins.
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  This finally appeared...;Your Role: co-author;Full Citation: Fong, S. and J. Ginsburg. Computation with doubling constituents: Pronouns and antecedents in Phase Theory. In Towards a Biolinguistic understanding of grammar: Essays on interfaces, ed. by Anna Maria Di Sciullo, 303-338. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Former UA grad student, prof at Aizu University, Japan.;
• Fong, S. -., Malioutov, I., Yankama, B., & Berwick, R. (2012). Treebank Parsing and Knowledge of Language: A Cognitive Perspective.. Springer-Verlag.
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  Expanded (40 page) paper.;Your Role: First author.;Full Citation: Treebank Parsing and Knoweledge of Language. Fong, S. et al. (pp. 133-172). In T. Poibeau et al. (eds.), Cognitive Aspects of Computational Language Acquisition, 133 Theory and Applications of Natural Language Processing,DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-31863-4 6, Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013;Collaborative with graduate student: Yes;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Graduate student Igor Maloutov is at MIT. I'm on his thesis committee. Robert Berwick is MIT prof. Beracah Yankama is grad student at MIT.;
• Fong, S. -. (2007). Arabic PAPPI. John Benjamins.
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  ;Your Role: author;Full Citation: “Arabic PAPPI.” Fong, S. In Benmamoun, B. (Ed.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XIX. pp. 19-35. John Benjamins 2007.;

Journals/Publications

• Bever, T., Chomsky, N., Fong, S., & Piattelli-Palmarini, M. (2023). Even deeper problems with neural network models of language. Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 46(e387). doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X23001619
• Fong, S., & Ginsburg, J. (2023). On the computational modeling of English relative clauses. Open Linguistics, 9(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2022-0246
• Spouse, J., Yankama, B., Indurkhya, S., Fong, S., & Berwick, R. (2018). Colorless green ideas do sleep furiously: gradient acceptability and the nature of the grammar. The Linguistic Review, 35(3), 575-599.
• Fong, S. -. (2009). Parsing in the Minimalist Program: On SOV Languages and Relativization. Canadian Journal of Linguistics (CJL).
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  ;Your Role: Sole author and computer program implementor;Full Citation: Canadian Journal of Linguistics (CJL) 53(2-3), 237-252.;
• Fong, S. -., & Fellbaum, C. (2006). Obstacles and Regions. Linguistica Computazionale, Istituti Editoriali E Poligrafici Internazionali, Pisa-Rome.
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  ;Your Role: Co-author;Full Citation: Obstacles and Regions. Fellbaum, C. and S. Fong, p.69-88, Linguistica Computazionale, Vol XXII-XXIII. 2006.;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Collaborative with faculty member at Princeton University;

Proceedings Publications

• Fong, S., Ginsburg, J., & Terada, H. (2017, July). Japanese Internally-Headed Relative Clauses and Relabeling. In Proceedings of the 13th Workshop on Altaic Formal Linguistics, MIT Working Papers in Linguistics 88, 319-324.
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  Conference in Tokyo was in summer 2017 when I was on sabbatical leave. 5 page paper in Proceedings finally came out in MITWPL. I am lead author.
• Fong, S., & Ginsburg, J. (2014, April 19-20). Stack Based Agree. In 32nd conference and Seventh International Spring Forum of the English Society of Japan (JELS32), 235-241.
• Fong, S. -., & Ginsburg, J. (2012). Modeling of Coereference Relations in Multi-Object Constructions.
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  ;Your Role: co-author;Full Citation: Modeling of Coreference Relations in Multi-Object Constructions. Fong S. and J. Ginsburg. IIn Proceedings of the 13th Tokyo Conference on Psycholinguistics (TCP 2012)., ed. by Yukio Otsu, 61-80. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo Publishing.;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Jason Ginsburg is a former UA PhD student and prof at University of Aizu;
• Fong, S. -., & Birturk, A. (2009). A Computational Analysis of Turkish in the Principles and Parameters Framework.
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  ;Your Role: Co-author and co-implementor of computer program;Full Citation: In Proceedings of the 4th Language & Technology Conference (LTC): Human Language Technologies as a Challenge for Computer Science and Linguistics. Poznań, Poland. 2009.;Electronic: Yes;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Co-author is faculty in Dept. of Computer Engineering, Middle East Technical University (METR), Ankara, Turkey;
• Fong, S. -., & Berwick, R. C. (2008). Treebank Parsing and Knowledge of Language: A Cognitive Perspective..
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  ;Your Role: first author;Full Citation: Treebank Parsing and Knowledge of Language: A Cognitive Perspective. Fong, S. and R.C. Berwick. In Proceedings of the 30th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. (pp. 539-544). Washington, DC, USA 2008. ;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: MIT professor;
• Fong, S. -., Lin, C., & Bever, T. (2006). Constructing Filler-Gap Dependencies in Chinese Possessor Relative.
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  ;Your Role: Co-author;Full Citation: Lin, Chien-Jer Charles, Fong, Sandiway and Bever, Thomas G. (2005)."Constructing Filler-Gap Dependencies in Chinese Possessor RelativeClauses." Proceedings of the 19th Pacific-Asia Conference on Language,Information, and Computation (pp. 143-154). Taipei: Academia Sinica.;Collaborative with graduate student: Yes;Collaborative with faculty member in unit: Yes;

Presentations

• Fong, S., & Oishi, M. (2023, December). On the nature of Formset. FIND-2023. Göttingen, Germany: European Union.
• Fong, S. (2018, December). On Statistical Parsing: Temporary Ambiguities. Generative Grammar at the Speed of Ninety. University of Arizona.
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  Invited talk at Chomsky's 90th Birthday workshop.
• Fong, S. (2018, December). Statistical Parsing: The case of temporary ambiguities. Generative Grammar at the Speed of Ninety.
• Fong, S. (2018, February). The Search for Solutions in the Space of Free Merge. OKU Linguistics Colloquium. Osaka, Japan: Osaka Kyoiku University.
• Fong, S. (2018, September). TreeDraw. Synsalon presentation.
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  Presented my TreeDraw program (free for Windows, Mac and Linux) at Synsalon.
• Fong, S. -. (2012, 2012-03-01). Computing Minimalism. CUNY Sentence Processing Conference. New York.
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  Invited talk at CUNY 2012;Your Role: author;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Type of Presentation: Invited/Plenary Speaker;
• Fong, S. -. (2012, 2012-10-01). Experimenting with Treebanks. Arizona Linguistics Circle 6. U of A.
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  Invited talk at ALC 6;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Type of Presentation: Invited/Plenary Speaker;
• Fong, S. -. (2012, 2013-03-01). On the Evaluation of Syntactic Parsing. Cogsci Colloquium. U of Arizona.
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  ;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: Invited/Plenary Speaker;
• Fong, S. -. (2011, 2011-03-01). Minimalist Parsing: simplicity and feature unification. Conference on Language and Recursion. Mons, Belgium.
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  Invited talk;Invited: Yes;
• Fong, S. -. (2011, 2011-04-01). On the generative capacity of languages: human and non-human. SISTA colloquim. U of Arizona.
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  This is not an entry error, this talk was given 4 times in 2011...;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2011, 2011-08-01). On the generative capacity of languages: human and non-human. Linguistics Colloquium. U of Arizona.
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  first linguistics colloquium of fall 2011.;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2011, 2011-11-01). A tutorial on natural language parsing, semantics and question answering. Colloquium. School of Modern Languages and School of Interactive Computing. Georgia Tech.
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  November 17th. I gave this talk via interactive video. I was invited there, but at the last moment, I couldn't make the flight.Yes. I was scheduled for 3 talks in one day at Georgia Tech;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2011, 2011-11-01). Idioms and Culture: Challenge and Opportunity. ICSR (International Conference on Social Robotics) 2011. U of Amsterdam. Holland.
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  ;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: Invited/Plenary Speaker;
• Fong, S. -. (2011, 2011-11-01). Natural language parsing: Treebanks and the knowledge of language. Colloquium. School of Modern Languages and School of Interactive Computing. Georgia Tech.
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  November 17th. I gave this talk via interactive video. I was invited there, but at the last moment, I couldn't make the flight.;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2011, 2011-11-01). On the generative capacity of languages: human and non-human. Colloquium. School of Modern Languages and School of Interactive Computing.. Georgia Tech.
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  November 17th. I gave this talk via interactive video. I was invited there, but at the last moment, I couldn't make the flight.;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2011, 2011-11-01). On the generative capacity of languages: human and non-human. Computer Science Seminar Series. Carnegie Mellon University at Qatar.. Doha, Qatar.
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  I gave this talk 4 times in 2011.;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -., & , J. G. (2011, 2011-10-01). A computational implementation of syntactic binding theory in the Minimalist Program. 2nd Joint Arizona State University (ASU)/University of Arizona (UA) Linguistics Symposium. Arizona State, Tempe AZ.
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  ;Your Role: co-author;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: ;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference/Workshop;
• Fong, S. -., & Ginsberg, J. (2010, 2011-01-01). Pronoun-Antecedent Relations from Last Resort Movement. WECOL 2010.
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  ;Your Role: co-author;Submitted: Yes;Refereed: Yes;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Collaboration with faculty member at Aizu University, Japan, who was a former PhD student in Linguistics.;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference;
• Fong, S. -. (2009, 2009-04-01). Human Language Technology: What you can and cannot do with lots of data.. CS Seminar Series. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Qatar. Doha, Qatar..
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  Talk given during first visit to CMU Qatar;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2009, 2009-11-01). Language, Grammar and Computation. CS Seminar Series. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Qatar. Doha, Qatar..
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  90 minute introductory talk as part of Computer Science Seminar Series. Followed by a one day workshop in December 2009.;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2009, 2009-12-01). 3 Talks on Multilingual Parsing, Semantics and Question Answering Systems. Workshop Series on Human Language Technologies. Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Qatar. Doha, Qatar..
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  Three separate talks in one day. Workshop for students, faculty and community in Doha, Qatar.;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2008, 2008-05-01). Cognition and Statistical Natural Language Parsing. Princeton University.
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  cogsci talk during visit to Princeton University;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -., & Berwick, R. C. (2008, 2008-07-01). Can Statistical Parsers WOW! You: A Cognitive Assessment.. (PsychoCompLA-2008) workshop. Washington DC.
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  abstract submitted and reviewed, talk given, two page abstract included here;Your Role: first author;Submitted: Yes;Refereed: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: MIT faculty.;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference/Workshop;
• Fong, S. -., & Swamaranjini, R. (2007, 2007-07-01). Subtitling and Automatic Speech Recognition. Mental Architecture for Processing and Learning of Language (MAPLL). Hiroshima, Japan.
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  poster;Submitted: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Collaborative with graduate student: Yes;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference/Workshop;
• Fong, S. -., Barnard, K., & Efrat, A. (2007, 2007-09-01). The SLIC Video Browsing System Project description and future plans. Computer Science Colloquium. University of Arizona.
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  ;Your Role: co-presenter;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Collaborative with faculty member at UA: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -., Berwick, R. (., Coen, M. (., & Niyogi, P. (. (2007, 2007-09-01). Statistical Natural Language Parsing and the Penn Treebank: Reliable Models of Language?. Cogsci Master's Seminar Series. University of Arizona.
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  ;Your Role: presenter;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Other universities (MIT, Wisconsin and Chicago).;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -., Berwick, R. (., Coen, M. (., & Niyogi, P. (. (2007, 2007-10-01). Statistical Natural Language Parsing: Reliable Models of Language?. Special 1-day MIT Workshop: Where Does Syntax Come From? Have We All Been Wrong?. Cambridge MA.
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  ;Your Role: presenter;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: my MIT collaboration with Robert Berwick;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference;
• Fong, S. -., Berwick, R. (., Coen, M. (., & Niyogi, P. (. (2007, 2008-02-01). The Great (Penn Treebank) Robbery: When statistics is not enough. Psychocomputational Models of Human Language Acquisition (PsychoCompLA-2007). Workshop at Cogsci 2007. Nashville TN.
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  ;Your Role: co-presenter;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Other universities (MIT, Wisconsin and Chicago).;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference/Workshop;
• Fong, S. -., Hammond, M., & Lin, Y. (2007, 2007-09-01). Computational Tutorial. Linguistics Colloquium. University of Arizona.
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  ;Your Role: co-presenter;Invited: Yes;Collaborative with faculty member in unit: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2006, 2006-03-01). Statistical Modeling in Natural Language Processing. Linguistics Colloquium. University of Arizona.
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  ;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Presented material as the Discussant in the colloquium;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2006, 2006-04-01). Computing with Linguistic Theory. ECE Distinguished Lecturer Series. University of Arizona.
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  ;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -. (2006, 2007-11-01). Opportunities and Challenges for Linguistic Theory in Computation. Computer Science Colloquium Talk. University of Arizona.
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  ;Invited: Yes;Type of Presentation: University;
• Fong, S. -., & Ginsberg, J. (2006, 2007-07-01). Parsing and multiple Wh-questions in Japanese. Fifth International Workshop on Evolutionary Cognitive Sciences. Tokyo University.
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  ;Your Role: Co-researcher;Refereed: Yes;Collaborative with graduate student: Yes;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference/Workshop;
• Fong, S. -., Lin, C., & Hirose, Y. (2006, 2006-05-01). On Preferring Displacement: Evidence from Possessive Relative Clauses. WAFL3. Moscow State University.
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  ;Your Role: Co-researcher;Invited: Yes;Interdisciplinary: Yes;Collaborative with graduate student: Yes;Other collaborative: Yes;Specify other collaborative: Charles Lin is graduate student (I'm on his thesis committee).Yuki Hirose is Associate Professor, Language Sciences, University of Tokyo;Type of Presentation: Academic Conference/Workshop;

Reviews

• Fong, S., & Ginsburg, J. (2013. A New Approach to Tough Constructions.

Others

• Fong, S. -., & Ginsburg, J. (2007). Modeling Q-Feature Movement in Japanese.
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  ;Your Role: co-author;Full Citation: Ginsburg, J. & Fong, S. Volume 15: Coyote Papers: Working Papers in Linguistics,Psycholinguistic and Computational Perspectives. Brewer, Jordan, P.O'Rourke and P. Richtsmeier (eds.). University of Arizona LinguisticsCircle. 2007.;Collaborative with graduate student: Yes;
• Fong, S. -. (2006). treebankviewer and treebanksearch.
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  ;Your Role: software author;Full Citation: Released Dec 2006http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~sandiway/treebankviewer/index.htmlTreeBank Viewer: A tree viewer for treebanks, e.g. the Penn Treebank (PTB) Platforms: MacOS X (Intel/PPC), Windows XP and Linux (Debian-based and RedHat-based)http://dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~sandiway/treebanksearch/index.htmlTreeBank Search: A logic-based treebank search and display program Platforms: MacOS X (Intel) initial release;