Minimalism

The Minimalist Program

Chomsky’s theories of language

Revolutionized Linguistics

X-bar theory

Notice that Phrases have heads!

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!

They use language a LOT

Maybe language develops with USE?

Many people think so

Usage in social activity

Do we need a Language Faculty?

Maybe – but it’s NOT conclusive

Many disagree now

Chomsky’s theory is implausible!

Implausible = unbelievable

Unbelievable – not in a good way

And many people didn’t agree forty years ago

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

Syntax is AUTONOMOUS!

Syntax is SEPARATE from meaning!?

Why should we believe that?

Tense is NOT meaning?

Agreement is NOT meaning?

Meaning is NOT in the words!!?

Everything comes from syntactic movement

Isn’t binding about meaning?

No connection with semantics?!

Isn’t the tense of love part of the meaning of the word?

Isn’t subject-verb agreement partly meaning?

Is movement necessary for agreement?

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• Where’s your evidence?• Where’s your proof?• 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

Then Minimalism gave us MORE structure!

Before there was just an Inflectional Phrase

IP split into AgrP and TP!

I thought Minimalist meant LESS!

Not MORE!

That’s a bit strange!

Around this time …

Unification grammars were improving

Unification Grammars have NO TP or AgrP

Sentences are VPs

AgrP and TP is just fog

Get rid of it

Like this

Like this

Call it a sentence if you want

But it’s a kind of VP

A Sentence is a VP PLUS a subject

There’s no tense phrase

There’s no Agr Phrase

Agreement and Tense are IN the words

In the lexicon

So what’s the problem?

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

Valence or Subcategorization

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

It looks like CONTENT is moving up the tree

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)

Let’s make it simple

Words carry information

She carries information

Walks carries information

Walks has partial information

About the subject it wants to attract

Match them up

And the information matches

If possible

From this

To this

I know … this looks complicated

But it’s ONE SIMPLE mechanism

Matching things up

Lots of information

But if you practice a little

You’ll get used to it

We WILL practice

But nothing difficult

So don’t worry

… the information MATCHES

Subcategorization

• SUBCAT or Valence features show what a verb wants to ATTRACT.

Chomsky’s enemies

• Chomsky’s enemies suggest that language develops in USE.

• What did Unification Grammar do with AgrP and TP?

• It got rid of it• It threw it in the garbage

• How do Unification Grammars deal with Tense and Agreement?

• It’s partly in the meaning of the words• They use pattern matching

What’s the problem with the PERFECT DESIGN idea?

• Don’t know what it means• Don’t know how to prove it• There’s no reason to believe in it

Walks SUBCAT

• SUBCAT • <NP[nom] • PERSON 3rd• NUMBER Sing• NUMBER x >

What’s NP[nom]?

• He is nominative case• Him is accusative case

• We is nominative case• Us is accusative case

Kicks SUBCAT|SUBJ

• NP[nom]• Anything but THIS:

• PERSON 3rd• NUMBER Sing• NUMBER x >

Kicks COMPLEMENT

<NP[acc] PERSON x NUMBER x

GENDER x >

• So kicks will accept any accusative complement

• But reject nominative complements

Thinks SUBCAT|SUBJ


Same as Walks SUBCAT|SUBJ


Thinks COMPLEMENT(OBJECT)

• SENTENCE (+ tense)

Think hates 3rd person singular subjects

Minimalism

Education