--- title: "Thomas L. Griffiths — author profile and papers" description: "Thomas L. Griffiths, Princeton University: 2 papers on Elamur Research (2007), h-index 97 — affiliations, topics, co-authors and who cites them in our…" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/thomas-l-griffiths/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/thomas-l-griffiths/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [authors](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/) / Thomas L. Griffiths # Thomas L. Griffiths Thomas L. Griffiths works on Bayesian methods for learning linguistic structure from unannotated text. The papers here ask how a learner can recover categories and grammars when no labelled examples are available, and they answer by replacing single best-fit parameter estimates with full Bayesian inference. Typical tools include Dirichlet priors, Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling and dynamic programming over parse charts, applied to problems such as [part-of-speech tagging](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/part-of-speech-tagging/) and grammar induction. The most cited of these works is [A fully Bayesian approach to unsupervised part-of-speech tagging](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/goldwater-2007-fully-bayesian-approach-unsupervised-part/) (2007). It keeps a standard trigram hidden Markov model but integrates out its transition and emission parameters, so that tags are chosen because they stay probable across many parameter settings. It also argues for sparse priors suited to the skewed distributions of natural language, and for variation of information as a label-free way to score clusterings. Close behind is [Bayesian Inference for PCFGs via Markov Chain Monte Carlo](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/johnson-2007-bayesian-inference-pcfgs-markov-chain/) (2007). That paper offers alternatives to Inside-Outside estimation for probabilistic context-free grammars, through a Gibbs sampler and a collapsed Hastings sampler that both draw whole trees from an inside chart. These papers, both from 2007, share a common direction. Each treats sampling-based Bayesian inference as a practical substitute for maximum-likelihood training in unsupervised language learning. Each also attends to convergence techniques such as annealing. The work on tagging and the work on grammars apply the same idea to different levels of linguistic structure. Griffiths is currently affiliated with [Princeton University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/princeton-university/) and the [University of California, Berkeley](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-california-berkeley/). Earlier bylines include [Brown University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/brown-university/), [Stanford University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/stanford-university/) and the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/). Co-authors on the papers here are [Sharon Goldwater](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/sharon-goldwater/) and [Mark Johnson](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/mark-johnson/). Thomas L. Griffiths has 2 papers in our library, in 2007, most of them on [Part-of-speech tagging](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/part-of-speech-tagging/); often with [Sharon Goldwater](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/sharon-goldwater/), [Mark Johnson](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/mark-johnson/). 2 papers in our library · 2007 [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/A5077079119) · [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5138-7255) · [**h-index 97**](https://openalex.org/authors/A5077079119) · [697 works](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5077079119) · [47,742 citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5077079119&sort=cited_by_count:desc) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 [📄 2 works in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/thomas-l-griffiths/#papers) · [🔗 266 citations in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/thomas-l-griffiths/cited-by/) · [5 more in our library without a page yet](#also) · [⭐ Paper Star rank #2409](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/paper-stars/page/25/#star-2409) The profile is the library's match of the name; two people with one name are not always told apart. Elsewhere: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=Thomas+L.+Griffiths) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=Thomas+L.+Griffiths) · [dblp](https://dblp.org/search?q=Thomas+L.+Griffiths) · [ACL Anthology](https://aclanthology.org/search/?q=Thomas+L.+Griffiths) ## Affiliations [🎓**Princeton University** Princeton · United States 2018–2026 · 355 papers*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/princeton-university/) · [🎓**University of California, Berkeley** Berkeley · United States 2001–2026 · 228 papers*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-california-berkeley/) · [🎓**Brown University** Providence · United States 2005–2012 · 18 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/brown-university/) · [🎓**Stanford University** Stanford · United States 2000–2019 · 14 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/stanford-university/) · [🎓**Massachusetts Institute of Technology** Cambridge · United States 2002–2007 · 9 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/) · [🎓**University of California System** Oakland · United States 2010–2016 · 4 papers](https://ror.org/00pjdza24) · [🎓**The University of Western Australia** Perth · Australia 2000–2013 · 3 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/the-university-of-western-australia/) · [🎓**Georgia Institute of Technology** Atlanta · United States 2024–2025 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/georgia-institute-of-technology/) · [🎓**University College London** London · United Kingdom 2009–2017 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-college-london/) · [🎓**University of Louisiana at Lafayette** Lafayette · United States 2007–2008 · 2 papers](https://ror.org/01x8rc503) From the bylines of their papers (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14), ORCID and Wikidata; institutions on papers are matched by machine. 12 more institutions on single bylines are not listed. ## Topics [Part-of-speech tagging (1)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/part-of-speech-tagging/) ## Works by year ### 2000s [**2007** 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/thomas-l-griffiths/year/2007/) ## Papers The most cited first (OpenAlex and our library). 1. **[A fully Bayesian approach to unsupervised part-of-speech tagging](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/goldwater-2007-fully-bayesian-approach-unsupervised-part/)** *(2007 · 380 citations)* The paper addresses unsupervised part-of-speech tagging. Standard methods fit one "best" parameter setting by maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) and then pick tags under that setting. Goldwater and Griffiths instead use a fully Bayesian approach. They keep the familiar trigram HMM structure but place symmetric… 2. **[Bayesian Inference for PCFGs via Markov Chain Monte Carlo](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/johnson-2007-bayesian-inference-pcfgs-markov-chain/)** *(2007 · 352 citations)* The paper offers Bayesian alternatives to the usual maximum-likelihood way of learning probabilistic context-free grammars (PCFGs) from unannotated strings with the Inside-Outside (IO) algorithm. ## Also in our library 5 more works of theirs are in our library without a page here yet; they will appear as we publish them. ## Co-authors here 2 co-authors with a page, the most papers together first. - [Sharon Goldwater](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/sharon-goldwater/) ×2 - [Mark Johnson](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/mark-johnson/) ## Cited by Papers of our library cite their works 266 times (of the 140,884 papers whose bibliographies we read); [10 citing papers with a page here →](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/thomas-l-griffiths/cited-by/).