Preface

This book is addressed to scholars and students of linguistics and compu- tational linguistics as well as others. Constraints are fundamental notions in the characterisation and processing of language. A model of language may consist of a generative and a constraining part, independently of whether the model concentrates on syntax or on the relationship between the meanings and their expression, and some models are entirely based on constraints. Different sorts of constraints appear in studies of languages, in computa- tional linguistics and in a variety of programming paradigms. This book does not claim to provide a unified view of constraints, but aims at creating a mutual inspiration and transfer of results between the different fields and directions covered in this book. . . .