Noam Chomsky,The Minimalist Program. (Current Studies in Linguistics 28.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. Pp. 420.The Minimalist Program, by Noam Chomsky, is a collection of four articles, ‘The Theory of Principles and Parameters’ (written with Howard Lasnik, 13–127), ‘Some notes on Economy of Derivation and representation’ (129–166), ‘A Minimalist Program for linguistic theory’ (167–217), and ‘Categories and transformations’ (219–394). The first three articles have appeared elsewhere, and are reprinted here with minor revisions. The fourth was circulated in manuscript form earlier in 1995 and is commonly referred to as ‘Chapter four’. The volume opens with an ‘Introduction’ (1–11) and closes with a general bibliography and an index (395–420).The work collected here is based on material presented by Chomsky, and discussed by participating students, faculty, and visitors, in Chomsky's fall term lecture-seminars at MIT in the period of 1986 through 1994. For those who have ever wanted to attend these class lectures, but were never in the position to, this is a must read. The MIT Press is to be commended for having made this collection available in such an exemplary inexpensive volume.

/pdf/the-minimalist-program-51133e4i6g.pdf

The minimalist program

The biolinguistic perspective regards the language faculty as an “organ of the body,” along with other cognitive systems. Adopting it, we expect to find three factors that interact to determine (I-) languages attained: genetic endowment (the topic of Universal Grammar), experience, and principles that are language- or even organism-independent. Research has naturally focused on I-languages and UG, the problems of descriptive and explanatory adequacy. The Principles-and-Parameters approach opened the possibility for serious investigation of the third factor, and the attempt to account for properties of language in terms of general considerations of computational efficiency, eliminating some of the technology postulated as specific to language and providing more principled explanation of linguistic phenomena

/pdf/three-factors-in-language-design-3ui5wze9cz.pdf

Three Factors in Language Design

Null objects in Italian and the theory of 'pro'

Rules and Representations

Problems of projection

We argue that Chomsky’s (2013) ‘‘label identification by minimal search’’ explains ‘‘obligatory exit’’ from intermediate positions, not only in the successive-cyclic Ā-movement phenomena that Chomsky analyzes, but also in (phase-internal) successive-cyclic A-movement. Moreover, it does so by employing simplest Merge and third-factor minimal search for label identification. Our extension of Chomsky’s analysis to A-movement operates without any appeal to Merge-over- Move or to lexical arrays or subarrays. This in turn renders the concept ‘‘phase’’ itself no longer necessary in analyzing the core cases of illicit A-movement, shown to reduce to labeling failure. Implications of this result and the nature of the long-standing evidence for strict cyclicity are discussed.

Labeling by minimal search: Implications for successive-cyclic a-movement and the conception of the postulate "phase"

A central goal of this paper is to present a new account of improper-movement phenomena based on Chomskys (2007, 2008) phase-based derivational approach. We claim that improper movement is excluded by virtue of Agree failure between a moving element and a finite T as a consequence of ''feature-splitting'' Internal Merge, which we argue is the most (or at least a very) natural implementation of Chomskys /-feature-inheritance system and Richardss (2007) value-transfer-simultaneity analysis. This analysis has a number of empirical and theoretical consequences: (i) regarding the explanation of A¢-opacity/-transparency intervention effects (Rezac 2003, Carstens 2005); (ii) the possible elimination, or reduction in scope, of the Activity Condition; and (iii) the possible characterization of A/A¢-position types solely in terms of categorial features. Moreover, we propose that (iv) the ban on improper movement is, in fact, not universal but is morphologically parameterized (at least) between English and the Bantu language Kilega.

/pdf/feature-splitting-internal-merge-improper-movement-2l825mywhy.pdf

Feature-Splitting Internal Merge: Improper Movement, Intervention, and the A/A¢ Distinction

In this article I investigate certain phenomena relating to superiority, the Empty Category Principle (ECP), and scope. I propose a chain-based scope-marking convention and a new analysis of adjunction, and hypothesize that English is a covert verb-second grammar. The analysis is couched within checking theory and ultimately within the bare theory of phrase structure. I propose category-neutral(-ized) LF representations, displaying VP-recursion but lacking functional heads and their projections, and I suggest that this, in turn, allows significant simplification of index-sensitive head government conditions appearing in many contemporary formulations of the ECP.

Overt scope marking and covert verb-second

. This paper has two goals. First, it provides a solution to an important and particularly recalcitrant problem regarding non-control infinitival complements of derived nouns, which have been argued to provide independent motivation for the retention of the EPP in T. Second, it presents an unnoted problem regarding the elimination of the EPP in infinitival complements of underived nouns, proposing an analysis for them that need not appeal to the EPP in T. To reach these goals, this paper appeals to: (i) an approach to null complementizers as affixes that require specific kinds of hosts, as proposed in Boskovic and Lasnik 2003 (building on, but modifying certain aspects of the foundational analysis in Pesetsky 1991 and Stowell 1981); and (ii) an argument (based on Ormazabal 1995) that non-control infinitival complements to nouns are CPs headed by an affixal null C.

/pdf/epp-in-t-more-controversial-subjects-3905ohtliu.pdf

EPP in T: More controversial subjects

Abstract As Chomsky (2004, 2005) notes, a theory with set-Merge allows this operation to apply in two different ways, externally (to two separate objects) and internally (one object contained within the other). Here we extend Chomsky’s form of argument to pair-Merge; i.e. in the absence of some stipulation preventing it, it too can apply in two ways: internally and externally. We will argue that external pair-Merge of heads overcomes a paradox concerning bridge verb constructions. In the final section we note that external pair-Merge of heads is, in effect, a “presyntactic” morphological (“word formation”) rule entailed by current syntactic theory. The extent to which the standard theory of morphological operations can be subsumed by external pair-Merge of heads, further unifying syntax and (aspects of) morphology is left for further research.

Samuel David Epstein

Papers

Labeling by minimal search: Implications for successive-cyclic a-movement and the conception of the postulate "phase"

Feature-Splitting Internal Merge: Improper Movement, Intervention, and the A/A¢ Distinction

Overt scope marking and covert verb-second

EPP in T: More controversial subjects

Phase cancellation by external pair-merge of heads