The Minimalist Program

The Minimalist Program PDF Author: Fahad Rashed Al-Mutairi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107041341
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
This evaluation of Chomsky's work from the perspectives of linguistics, evolution of language, history of physics, and philosophy of mind is interdisciplinary. It encourages linguists to reflect on the foundations of their discipline, and invites non-linguists to appreciate the complexity of human language and its place in the world.

The Minimalist Program

The Minimalist Program PDF Author: Fahad Rashed Al-Mutairi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107041341
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
This evaluation of Chomsky's work from the perspectives of linguistics, evolution of language, history of physics, and philosophy of mind is interdisciplinary. It encourages linguists to reflect on the foundations of their discipline, and invites non-linguists to appreciate the complexity of human language and its place in the world.

The Minimalist Program

The Minimalist Program PDF Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262531283
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
The Minimalist Program consists of four recent essays that attempt to situate linguistic theory in the broader cognitive sciences. In these essays the minimalist approach to linguistic theory is formulated and progressively developed. Building on the theory of principles and parameters and, in particular, on principles of economy of derivation and representation, the minimalist framework takes Universal Grammar as providing a unique computational system, with derivations driven by morphological properties, to which the syntactic variation of languages is also restricted. Within this theoretical framework, linguistic expressions are generated by optimally efficient derivations that must satisfy the conditions that hold on interface levels, the only levels of linguistic representation. The interface levels provide instructions to two types of performance systems, articulatory-perceptual and conceptual-intentional. All syntactic conditions, then, express properties of these interface levels, reflecting the interpretive requirements of language and keeping to very restricted conceptual resources. The Essays Principles and Parameters Theory Some Notes on Economy of Derivation and Representation A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory Categories and Transformations in a Minimalist Framework

Chomsky's Minimalism

Chomsky's Minimalism PDF Author: Pieter A. M. Seuren
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019534667X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Noam Chomsky's current theory, published in 1995, is known as The Minimalist Program and has been presented as his crowning achievement. It argues, familiarly, that there exists a universal grammar that is hardwired, and that, like an efficient machine, this grammar will tend to use the least possible number of constraints (phonetically and syntactically) to produce an utterance. Minimalism has spawned in linguistics an entire research program, despite being fundamentally misguided, according to distinguished linguist and philosopher of language Pieter Seuren. Seuren's accessible and spirited attack argues that the Minimalist Program is deeply flawed. He proposes that it fails to satisfy the basic criteria for sound scientific work, such as respect for data, unambiguous formulations, and falsifiability. Seuren points to the original acrimonious split in the 1960s and 1970s between Chomsky's generative grammar and the alternative generative semantics proposed by his followers, and argues that the latter theory was sounder and unfairly suppressed. Seuren maintains that this suppression--and the cult surrounding Chomsky and Minimalism more generally--has done great damage to linguistics by impairing open discussion of empirical issues and excluding valid alternatives. Chomsky's Minimalism will generate controversy among linguists in its attack on the fundamental assumptions used by an entire generation of researchers.

Minimal Ideas

Minimal Ideas PDF Author: Werner Abraham
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027282390
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
The articles in this volume are inspired by the Minimalist Program first outlined in Chomsky’s MIT Fall term class lectures of 1991 and in his seminal paper “A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory”. The articles seek to develop further some key idea in the Minimalist Program, sometimes in ways deviating from the course taken by Chomsky. The articles are preceded by a 40 page introduction into the minimalist framework. The introduction pays special attention to the question how the minimalist framework developed out of the Principles and Parameters (Government and Binding) framework. The introduction serves as a guide through the entire volume, presenting the issues to be discussed in the articles in detail, and offering a thematic overview over the volume as a whole. Most of the articles in this volume are concerned with issues raised in Chomsky’s first two minimalist papers, namely “A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory” (1993, first distributed in 1992) and “Bare Phrase Structure” (1995a, first distributed 1994). In acknowledgment of this, each article starts out with a quote from Chomsky (1993, 1995a). This quote also serves to highlight the particular grammatical or theoretical issue that is primarily discussed in the relevant article. Several articles relate issues raised in Chomsky’s first two minimalist papers to the basic ideas in Kayne’s book, The Antisymmetry of Syntax (1994, distributed in part in manuscript form in 1993). In many respects, therefore, these articles develop alternatives to ideas proposed in chapter 4, “Categories and Transformations,” of Chomsky’s most recent book, The Minimalist Program (1995b). Some of the articles contain references to chapter 4, and some comments on similarities and differences between ideas developed in these papers and in chapter 4 of Chomsky 1995b can also be found in the Introduction to this volume.

Aspects of the Theory of Syntax

Aspects of the Theory of Syntax PDF Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262260503
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Chomsky proposes a reformulation of the theory of transformational generative grammar that takes recent developments in the descriptive analysis of particular languages into account. Beginning in the mid-fifties and emanating largely form MIT, an approach was developed to linguistic theory and to the study of the structure of particular languages that diverges in many respects from modern linguistics. Although this approach is connected to the traditional study of languages, it differs enough in its specific conclusions about the structure and in its specific conclusions about the structure of language to warrant a name, "generative grammar." Various deficiencies have been discovered in the first attempts to formulate a theory of transformational generative grammar and in the descriptive analysis of particular languages that motivated these formulations. At the same time, it has become apparent that these formulations can be extended and deepened.The major purpose of this book is to review these developments and to propose a reformulation of the theory of transformational generative grammar that takes them into account. The emphasis in this study is syntax; semantic and phonological aspects of the language structure are discussed only insofar as they bear on syntactic theory.

A Minimalist Theory of Simplest Merge

A Minimalist Theory of Simplest Merge PDF Author: Samuel D. Epstein
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000442217
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
This collection explicates one of the core ideas underpinning Minimalist theory – explanation via simplification – and its role in shaping some of the latest developments within this framework, specifically the simplest Merge hypothesis and the reduction of syntactic phenomena to third factor considerations. Bringing together recent papers on the topic by Epstein, Kitahara, and Seely, with one by Epstein, Seely and Obata, and one by Kitahara, the book begins with an introduction which situates the papers in a cohesive overview of some of the latest research on Minimalism, as facilitated by current theoretical developments. The volume integrates a historical overview of evolutions in Merge, starting with Chomsky’s (pre-Merge) Aspects model up to current theoretical models, including a primer of Chomsky’s most recent theory of Merge based on the concept of Workspace. The Minimalist notions of "perfection" and "simplification" are also outlined, providing clearly explicated coverage of key technical concepts within the framework as applied to grammatical phenomena. Taken as a whole, the collection both introduces and advances Minimalist theory for students and scholars in linguistics and related sub-disciplines of psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science, as well as offering new directions for future research for researchers in these fields.

The Minimalist Program

The Minimalist Program PDF Author: Fahad Rashed Al-Mutairi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 131612357X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The development of the Minimalist Program (MP), Noam Chomsky's most recent generative model of linguistics, has been highly influential over the last twenty years. It has had significant implications not only for the conduct of linguistic analysis itself, but also for our understanding of the status of linguistics as a science. The reflections and analyses in this book contain insights into the strengths and the weaknesses of the MP. These include: a clarification of the content of the Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT); a synthesis of Chomsky's linguistic and interdisciplinary discourses; and an analysis of the notion of optimal computation from conceptual, empirical and philosophical perspectives. This book will encourage graduate students and researchers in linguistics to reflect on the foundations of their discipline, and the interdisciplinary nature of the topics explored will appeal to those studying biolinguistics, neurolinguistics, the philosophy of language and other related disciplines.

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism

The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Minimalism PDF Author: Cedric Boeckx
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0199549362
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 736

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Book Description
This Handbook provides a complete assessment of the current achievements and challenges of the Minimalist Program. Leading researchers explore the origins of the program, the course of its research, and its connections with other disciplines, such as developmental biology, cognitive science, computational science, and philosophy of mind.

A Companion to Chomsky

A Companion to Chomsky PDF Author: Nicholas Allott
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119598702
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 644

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Book Description
A COMPANION TO CHOMSKY Widely considered to be one of the most important public intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky has revolutionized modern linguistics. His thought has had a profound impact upon the philosophy of language, mind, and science, as well as the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science which his work helped to establish. Now, in this new Companion dedicated to his substantial body of work and the range of its influence, an international assembly of prominent linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists reflect upon the interdisciplinary reach of Chomsky's intellectual contributions. Balancing theoretical rigor with accessibility to the non-specialist, the Companion is organized into eight sections—including the historical development of Chomsky's theories and the current state of the art, comparison with rival usage-based approaches, and the relation of his generative approach to work on linguistic processing, acquisition, semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language. Later chapters address Chomsky's rationalist critique of behaviorism and related empiricist approaches to psychology, as well as his insistence upon a "Galilean" methodology in cognitive science. Following a brief discussion of the relation of his work in linguistics to his work on political issues, the book concludes with an essay written by Chomsky himself, reflecting on the history and character of his work in his own words. A significant contribution to the study of Chomsky's thought, A Companion to Chomsky is an indispensable resource for philosophers, linguists, psychologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers with interest in Noam Chomsky's intellectual legacy as one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century.

Analysing English Sentences

Analysing English Sentences PDF Author: Andrew Radford
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521516978
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 541

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Book Description
This book provides a concise introduction to work in syntactic theory, drawing on the key concepts of Chomsky's Minimalist Program.