What Formal Languages Can Transformers Express? A Survey

arXiv:2311.00208v2 Announce Type: replace
Abstract: As transformers have gained prominence in natural language processing, some researchers have investigated theoretically what problems they can and cannot solve, by treating problems as formal languages. Exploring such questions can help clarify the power of transformers relative to other models of computation, their fundamental capabilities and limits, and the impact of architectural choices. Work in this subarea has made considerable progress in recent years. Here, we undertake a comprehensive survey of this work, documenting …

abstract arxiv capabilities computation cs.cl cs.fl cs.lg cs.lo express fundamental language language processing languages natural natural language natural language processing power processing questions researchers solve survey transformers type