Phonological Processes as Modal Transductions

Tatevik Yolyan; Jesse Comer

Phonological Processes as Modal Transductions

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Abstract

This paper argues in favor of a fundamentally new perspective on phonology via modal logic. We show that the class of total Boolean Monadic Recursive Schemes (BMRS), used in computational modeling of phonological processes (Bhaskar et al., 2020; Chandlee Jardine, 2021), is equivalent in expressive power to the well-studied modal 𝜇-calculus. As a corollary of this result, we obtain an alternative proof that order-preserving BMRS transductions capture the class of rational functions, which have been posited as a complexity bound on natural language phonological grammars.

Anthology ID:: 2026.scil-main.51
Volume:: Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026
Month:: July
Year:: 2026
Address:: San Diego, CA
Editors:: Rob Voigt, Alex Warstadt, Naomi Feldman, Tal Linzen
Venues:: SCiL | WS
SIG:
Publisher:: Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:: 549–559
Language:
URL:: https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.51/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):: Tatevik Yolyan and Jesse Comer. 2026. Phonological Processes as Modal Transductions. In Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026, pages 549–559, San Diego, CA. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):: Phonological Processes as Modal Transductions (Yolyan & Comer, SCiL 2026)
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PDF:: https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.51.pdf

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@inproceedings{yolyan-comer-2026-phonological,
    title = "Phonological Processes as Modal Transductions",
    author = "Yolyan, Tatevik  and
      Comer, Jesse",
    editor = "Voigt, Rob  and
      Warstadt, Alex  and
      Feldman, Naomi  and
      Linzen, Tal",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026",
    month = jul,
    year = "2026",
    address = "San Diego, CA",
    publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
    url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.51/",
    pages = "549--559",
    ISBN = "979-8-89176-412-5",
    abstract = "This paper argues in favor of a fundamentally new perspective on phonology via modal logic. We show that the class of total Boolean Monadic Recursive Schemes (BMRS), used in computational modeling of phonological processes (Bhaskar et al., 2020; Chandlee Jardine, 2021), is equivalent in expressive power to the well-studied modal $\mu$-calculus. As a corollary of this result, we obtain an alternative proof that order-preserving BMRS transductions capture the class of rational functions, which have been posited as a complexity bound on natural language phonological grammars."
}

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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Phonological Processes as Modal Transductions
%A Yolyan, Tatevik
%A Comer, Jesse
%Y Voigt, Rob
%Y Warstadt, Alex
%Y Feldman, Naomi
%Y Linzen, Tal
%S Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026
%D 2026
%8 July
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C San Diego, CA
%@ 979-8-89176-412-5
%F yolyan-comer-2026-phonological
%X This paper argues in favor of a fundamentally new perspective on phonology via modal logic. We show that the class of total Boolean Monadic Recursive Schemes (BMRS), used in computational modeling of phonological processes (Bhaskar et al., 2020; Chandlee Jardine, 2021), is equivalent in expressive power to the well-studied modal μ-calculus. As a corollary of this result, we obtain an alternative proof that order-preserving BMRS transductions capture the class of rational functions, which have been posited as a complexity bound on natural language phonological grammars.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.51/
%P 549-559

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Markdown (Informal)

[Phonological Processes as Modal Transductions](https://aclanthology.org/2026.scil-main.51/) (Yolyan & Comer, SCiL 2026)

Phonological Processes as Modal Transductions (Yolyan & Comer, SCiL 2026)

ACL

Tatevik Yolyan and Jesse Comer. 2026. Phonological Processes as Modal Transductions. In Proceedings of the Society for Computation in Linguistics 2026, pages 549–559, San Diego, CA. Association for Computational Linguistics.