M I T ArtificialIntelligenceLaboratory 545 Technology Square Cambridge, M A 02139, U S A ABSTRACT In this paper we apply some recent work of Angluin (1982) to the induction of the English auxiliary verb system. In general, the induction of finiteautomata is computationally intractable. However, Angluin shows that restricted finite automata, the It-reversible automata, can be learned by el~cient (polynomial time) algorithms. W e present an explicit computer model demonstrating that the English auxiliary verb system can in fact be learned as a I-reversible automaton, and hence in a computationally feasibleamount of time. The entire system can be acquired.
