Minimalism

The Minimalist Program

Chomsky’s theories of language

Revolutionized Linguistics

X-bar theory

Binding

Language and the brain

New ways of thinking about language

Language is a special system

Language is innate

Very interesting ideas

The innateness hypothesis

• Language depends on a SEPARATE system in the brain

• The Language Faculty (the Language Module)• We are BORN with Universal Grammar in our

brains!

It’s an interesting idea

But it’s still just an idea

Children practice speaking a lot!

10,000 hours by the time they are 6

That’s a lot of practice!

Do we need a Language Faculty?

Maybe – but it’s NOT conclusive

And many people didn’t agree

Many didn’t like Chomsky’s ideas about meaning?

Syntax is AUTONOMOUS!

Syntax is SEPARATE from meaning!?

Why should we believe that?

Isn’t binding about meaning?

Lakoff said that language is connected to the body

How can it be a separate system?

Chomsky’s big claims

• Syntax is separate from meaning• Many people disagreed• Language is separate in the mind• Many people didn’t agree• But THEN …

The Minimalist Program

Chomsky’s NEW idea

Not ONLY is syntax separate

Not ONLY is language separate

Language is the perfect design!!

Wait!

The perfect design!

How do you know?!

How COULD we know!

Lots of people found this difficult to believe

Why SHOULD language have a PERFECT design?

Where’s the proof?

We’re still waiting

Around this time …

Unification grammars were improving

Maybe there IS no language faculty

Who cares?

Maybe grammar and meaning work together

We can do that

Grammar and meaning IN words!

Maybe there’s no movement

We don’t need movement

Pattern-matching instead

So what’s the problem?

Unification grammars

Complex feature structures

Very complex

Very, very COMPLEX

So pattern-matching is simple

Animals can match patterns, can’t they?

But the patterns are COMPLEX

So how does this work?

Agreement

Information contained in words

How does the information match?

Words attract certain other words

And repel others

Imagine this is our mental lexicon

Information about words – in our heads

Walks: wants a 3rd person singular noun phrase

Walk: really DOESN’T WANT a 3rd person singular noun phrase

It seems natural that this information matches

The information is shared

Features are matched

Chomsky needs information in the lexicon

And he needs the information to match

But he ALSO needs movement of features

Unification grammars just unify the information

No movement

Grammatical info and meaning info

[She] is 3rd, sing, fem

Walks takes a subject that is 3rd, sing

The CONT (meaning) of [walks]

… matches the meaning of the subject

This information is in the lexicon

When the words [she] and [walks] combine …

… the information MATCHES

The CONTENT information in the subject …

… matches with the CONTENT information in the verb

The same information appears in new places

What about the purple [3]?

Rule: the content of a phrase = the content of the head

It kind of LOOKS like movement

But it’s really information MATCHING

The CONTENT is carried up the HEAD (it’s a rule)

So the purple [3] looks like it moves

But it’s just feature sharing (matching)

I know … it’s complex

Lots of information

But if you practice a little

You’ll get used to it

We WILL practice

… the information MATCHES