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An Algebraic View of the Expressivity of Recurrent Language Models

2026-06-01 06:47:58
Franz Nowak, Ryan Cotterell, Reda Boumasmoud
arXiv_CL
       
Abstract

What formal languages can a recurrent neural language model recognize? Formal results in the literature conflict: some authors report Turing-completeness, while others show equivalence to regular languages. The reason for this discrepancy is that the underlying arithmetic model differs. The paper develops a unified algebraic account of the expressivity of recurrent neural networks, starting with a formal account of various arithmetic models. This account reduces expressivity to an algebraic question, e.g., whether a network's syntactic monoid divides a certain wreath product. As a case study, the paper revisits diagonal state-space models: the same architecture cannot implement an even-modulus counter once floating-point recurrences are enforced, yet realizes every even-modulus counter under unsigned-integer quantization.

Abstract (translated)

URL

https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01765

PDF

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2606.01765.pdf

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