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2026-09-12 | Maxwell

Goal: Read linguistic theories on syntax

Summary: Thinking about workplace Syntax as a dynamical system

Work sessions

In Out Task
17:30 18:00 Task Planning and Reflection

So I've done a pretty bad job at documenting my daily research work now that I'm back at USC. Rather than trying to backlog 3 weeks, I'll put some key points that I would want to remember when looking back at this (writing this in the linguistics conference room in GFS 330.)

  1. Met with Jing Huang and went to IPAM interp workshop at UCLA; learned more about training dynamics and this seems like an interesting direction
  2. Had a very insightful talk with Khalil about the value of asking good questions especially in the age of AI (Navier Stokes OAI solution/controversy started earlier this week)
  3. Went to Michael Hahn's lecture on D-RASP and sent him some results!?
  4. Currently thinking about Merge and gaining a more first principles understanding of what the problem LLMs training is trying to solve

Goals

I have this big list of things I want to read from conversations I've had.

In general, I feel stuck in the sense that there seem to be lots of computational tools (a basket of patching/path/attribution algorithms) and theoretical frameworks for Causal Abstraction. However, these feel more like answers rather than questions. What I hope to do today and tomorrow is to gain a better understanding of how to ask better questions by looking at the rich literature of a diverse set of disciplines.

But...you can do it all just not at once. Here's my priorities for now:

  1. A Formalization of Minimalism Syntax, Collins & Stabler
  2. Physics of LLMs, Alan Zhu
  3. Treat: Lexical Semantics in the Time of LLMs, Potts
  4. Minimalism and Computation: Where Are We Heading? [https://sandiway.arizona.edu/fong-caltech2024.pdf] Followup reading to Collins & Stabler, Sandiway Fong

Meetings

  • None