--- title: "Broad-Coverage Parsing Using Human-Like Memory Constraints" description: "The authors propose a performance-oriented parsing model that applies a reversible right-corner… 3 references, cited by 25 papers here." authors: ["William Schuler", "Samir AbdelRahman", "Tim Miller", "Lane Schwartz"] year: 2010 venue: "Computational Linguistics" source: "https://aclanthology.org/J10-1001/" doi: "10.1162/coli.2010.36.1.36100" licence: "CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)" licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/" summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/schuler-2010-broad-coverage-parsing-human-like/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/schuler-2010-broad-coverage-parsing-human-like/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/) / [2010](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2010/) / Broad-Coverage Parsing Using Human-Like Memory Constraints # Broad-Coverage Parsing Using Human-Like Memory Constraints **Authors:** [William Schuler](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/william-schuler/), Samir AbdelRahman, [Tim Miller](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/tim-miller/) and [Lane Schwartz](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/lane-schwartz/) · **Year:** 2010 · **Venue:** [Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cl/) ([Computational Linguistics 2010](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cl/2010/)) · **Publisher:** [The MIT Press](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/the-mit-press/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (ACL Anthology, before 2016)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/) **Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/J10-1001/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/J10-1001.pdf) · [DOI 10.1162/coli.2010.36.1.36100](https://doi.org/10.1162/coli.2010.36.1.36100) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W2130300813) **Citations:** 84 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14) · [25](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/schuler-2010-broad-coverage-parsing-human-like/cited-by/) in our library, of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read ## Summary The paper asks whether human sentence comprehension could run entirely inside general-purpose short-term memory, which is thought to hold only about three or four items. The authors propose a performance-oriented parsing model that applies a reversible right-corner transform, a variant of left-corner parsing. The transform turns right-branching structure into left-branching structure, so that incomplete constituents can be combined before either is finished. Each transformed tree maps onto random variables of a Hierarchical Hidden Markov Model (HHMM), which behaves like a probabilistic pushdown automaton with a pushdown store of fixed size. On the Penn Treebank, after a linguistically motivated head-based binarization, most sentences can be recognized with at most three incomplete constituents in memory, and almost all with four. Accuracy experiments show that the predictions forced by early composition can be learned reliably from training data. The work matters because it shows that rich phrase structure is compatible with realistic memory limits. It also complements, rather than replaces, surprisal- and interference-based explanations of processing difficulty. ## Key points - **Resource and method:** Penn Treebank, binarized with head-projection rules for NP, VP, ADJP, ADVP, PP and S (listed in Appendix A), then right-corner transformed and mapped onto an HHMM (Murphy and Paskin 2001). - **Coverage claim:** a memory bound of 3 incomplete constituents covers the vast majority of sentences, and a bound of 4 covers nearly all. This matches Cowan's (2001) estimate of human memory capacity, not the older figure of about seven used in left-corner accounts by Johnson-Laird and by Abney and Johnson. - **Parser setup:** the bounded-memory parser is evaluated without lexicalization or smoothing. It is compared with unbounded parsers that use similar conditioning information. The exact coverage and accuracy figures fall in the part of the paper omitted from the supplied extract. - **Theoretical position:** the model treats memory as allocated conjunctively, across incomplete constituents within one hypothesis. Surprisal and activation models describe disjunctive allocation, across competing hypotheses. The authors therefore see the two accounts as orthogonal but potentially unifiable. - **Future work:** a lexicalized version with head-word dependencies is postponed. It would require converting weighted PCFGs into right-corner form (Schuler 2009) using an approximation similar to value iteration. The research was funded by NSF CAREER/PECASE award 0,447,685 and NASA award NNX08AC36A. *Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.* ## Institutions - [Cairo University](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/cairo-university/) — University, Giza, Egypt · 42 works · 1,350 citations - [University of Minnesota](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-minnesota/) — University, Minneapolis, United States · 28 works · 2,184 citations 📚 Shelves (6): [🖥️ Computer Science](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · 16,667 works · [🤖 Artificial Intelligence](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · 16,194 works · [🎭 Arts and Humanities](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · 16,039 works · [🗣️ Language and Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · 15,891 works · [🧠 Neuroscience](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/neuroscience/) · 165 works · [🧠 Cognitive Neuroscience](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/neuroscience/cognitive-neuroscience/) · 164 works ## Cite Cite as: William Schuler, Samir AbdelRahman, Tim Miller and Lane Schwartz. 2010. Broad-Coverage Parsing Using Human-Like Memory Constraints. Computational Linguistics. The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. ```bibtex @article{schuler2010broad, title = {{Broad-Coverage Parsing Using Human-Like Memory Constraints}}, author = {William Schuler, Samir AbdelRahman, Tim Miller and Lane Schwartz}, journal = {Computational Linguistics}, year = {2010}, doi = {10.1162/coli.2010.36.1.36100}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1162/coli.2010.36.1.36100} } ``` - [← previous Painless Unsupervised Learning with Features](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/kirkpatrick-2010-painless-unsupervised-learning-features/) - [next → “Ask Not What Textual Entailment Can Do for You...”](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/sammons-2010-ask-not-what-textual-entailment/) - [↑ back to papers of 2010](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2010/) ## References 3 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet. 1. Abney, Steven P. and Mark Johnson. 1991. Memory requirements and local ambiguities of parsing strategies. J. Psycholinguistic Research, 20(3):233–250. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Abney%2C+Steven+P%2E+and+Mark+Johnson%2E+1991%2E+Memory+requirements+and+local+ambiguities+of+parsing+strategies%2E+J%2E+Psycholinguistic+Research%2C+20%283%29%3A233%E2%80%93250%2E) 2. Ades, Anthony E. and Mark Steedman. 1982. On the order of words. Linguistics and Philosophy, 4:517–558. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Ades%2C+Anthony+E%2E+and+Mark+Steedman%2E+1982%2E+On+the+order+of+words%2E+Linguistics+and+Philosophy%2C+4%3A517%E2%80%93558%2E) 3. Aho, Alfred V. and Jeffery D. Ullman. 1972. The Theory of Parsing, Translation and ⇒ ... [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Aho%2C+Alfred+V%2E+and+Jeffery+D%2E+Ullman%2E+1972%2E+The+Theory+of+Parsing%2C+Translation+and+%E2%87%92+%2E%2E%2E) *Updated 30 October 2026*