Linguistic Minimalism: Origins, Concepts, Methods, and Aims

257 Pages·2006·1.54 MB·English

by  Cedric Boeckx

Linguistic Minimalism
‘‘This deeply-informed study, drawing from a wide diversity of
domains,providesathoughtfulperspectiveonhowaminimalist
programinlinguisticsemergesasanaturaloutcomeofadvances
inunderstandingofthenatureoflanguageanditsacquisition.It
also outlines a course the program might take in seeking to
identifythedistinctivepropertiesofhumanlanguage,separating
them from the effects of more general principles, which may
reducetolawsofnature.Todetermineitsspecialpropertieshas
been the goal of serious inquiry into language from its ancient
origins. Such inquiry is now taking quite new forms, and,
as Boeckx shows, is productively investigating questions that
could scarcely have been formulated not long ago.’’ Noam
Chomsky,MIT
‘‘An engaging, accessible, important exposition of Chomsky’s
pioneering Program, including its normal scientificevolution,
thehigherstandardsofexplanationitimposesandtheexciting
new interdisciplinary linkages it has established.’’ Samuel
DavidEpstein,UniversityofMichigan
‘‘Linguistic Minimalism: Origins, Methods, and Aims is an in-
sightful presentation of the conceptual underpinnings and
internal logic of the Minimalist Program. It will show the
curious why those of us pursuing this program are so excited
by itsprospects.’’HowardLasnik,UniversityofMaryland
‘‘Cedric Boeckx has constructed an illuminating nontechnical
exposition of the character, historical roots, new insights, and
profound interdisciplinary reach of the Minimalist Program,
which has for over a decade been moving the biolinguistic
approachtothestudyoflanguageandmindforward.Foranyone
whowantstolearn(more)abouttheMP,thisvaluableoverviewis
anexcellentstartingpoint.’’RobertFreidin,PrincetonUniversity
To Noam, for reasons that will be obvious
to anyone who reads this book
& above all
To Youngmi, for reasons that words cannot begin to express
Linguistic Minimalism
Origins, Concepts, Methods, and Aims
CEDRIC BOECKX
1
3
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1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of Abbreviations x
1 The Minimalist Gamble 1
1.1 Minimalism in a nutshell 2
1.2 How to approach minimalism 5
1.3 Author’s aims 11
2 The Minimalist Roots 15
2.1 The birth of modern biolinguistics 16
2.2 Levels of adequacy 17
2.3 The poverty of stimulus, and what must
be done about it 20
2.4 Computational properties of the language organ 28
2.4.1 Early results 28
2.4.2 Later developments 39
2.4.3 Parameters 53
2.5 Conclusion 59
3 The Minimalist Core 61
3.1 The Government-Binding model 61
3.1.1 Why take Government-Binding
as a starting point? 62
3.1.2 Some generalizations 66
3.2 Taking stock 83
3.3 The notion of ‘program’ and how it applies
to minimalism 84
3.3.1 Programvs. theory 85
3.3.2 Lakatos on research programs 87
3.4 Conclusion 109
vi Contents
4 The Minimalist Impact 110
4.1 The Galilean style in science 111
4.2 Why-questions 114
4.3 Beauty in science 116
4.4 The Galilean style and biology 123
4.4.1 Linguistics as biology 125
4.4.2 Two scientiWc cultures 131
4.4.3 Back to laws of form 135
4.4.4 The evolution of the language faculty 138
4.4.5 Language and cognition 147
4.5 Conclusion 150
5 The Minimalist Highlights 152
5.1 Caveat lector 152
5.2 Evaluating the objections to the program 154
5.3 SpeciWc minimalist analyses 159
5.3.1 Control 159
5.3.2 Copies and linearization 165
5.3.3 Aconstraint on multiple wh-fronting 168
5.3.4 Successive cyclicity 170
5.3.5 Bare phrase structure 172
5.3.6 Sluicing 178
5.3.7 Parasitic gaps 183
5.3.8 Existential constructions 186
5.4 Conclusion 190
6 The Minimalist Seduction 193
Glossary 198
References 207
Index 235
Acknowledgements
Products of science are rarely the result of a single person’s work.
The present book is no exception. I beneWted immensely from
interactionswithfriendsandcolleaguesintheprocessofconceiving
and writing this essay, and it is a pleasure to acknowledge my
indebtedness to them here.
First and foremost, I would like to thank Noam Chomsky, who
has been extremely supportive of my work since I joined the Weld,
and has encouraged me to write this book. Noam commented
extensively on the manuscript, and always took time to meet with
metoaddressvariousissuesdiscussedinthefollowingpages.Itwill
be obvious to anyone who reads but a single page of this book that
Noam’s inXuence on me has been immense. His are shoulders of a
true giant.
Next, I would like to acknowledge the constant support of three
individuals who give meaning to the musketeers’ dictum ‘Un pour
tous,touspourun’inmyscientiWclife:NorbertHornstein,Massimo
Piattelli-Palmarini, and Juan Uriagereka. Norbert has read virtually
everythingIhavewritten ontheminimalistprogram, hasdiscussed
the generative enterprise with me on what must come close to a
daily basis, has provided much-needed laughs and intellectual
support, and managed to make me think of something else when I
neededabreak.It ishardto imagine whatIwoulddowithout him.
Massimo has been a constant source of delightful scientiWc infor-
mation and sound advice ever since we met in 2003. One-hour
meetings with Massimo are worth decades of graduate education.
His friendship is both an honor and a privilege. Juan has been a
constant source of support and inspiration ever since we met and
talked about Prigogine in 1997. Although our crazy lives have made
itdiYcult forustositdownandtalk asmuchaswewouldlike,the
dialoguebetweenusissomethingItreasureimmensely.Idon’tthink
I would have thought about writing a book like this one if Juan
viii Acknowledgements
hadn’t Wrst written Rhyme and Reason. To Norbert, Massimo, and
Juan, thank you for making my understanding of the minimalist
program much richer.
My teachers Zˇeljko Bosˇkovic´ and Howard Lasnik deserve special
thanks for giving me an excellent introduction to minimalism, and
thegenerativeprogramasawhole.Howard,inparticular,mademe
realize how rich the Wrst chapter of Aspects is. More recently, Paul
Pietroski has been a wonderful source of insights, and helped me
understand what a genuine semantics for natural languages might
look like. My colleague Marc Hauser raised many thoughtful
questions that no doubt made the present book better. I wish
many more cognitive scientists were as enthusiastic about the Weld
of linguistics as he is, and invested as much time in understanding
theenterpriseashedoes.PeterGalison,fromthedepartmentofthe
historyofscienceatHarvard,clariWednotions like‘theory,’‘model’,
and ‘program’ and in so doing greatly facilitated the writing of
Chapter 3. Steven Pinker, Ray JackendoV, and Fritz Newmeyer
took time to discuss what they regard as severe limitations of the
program, and thereby helped me gauge which aspects of minimal-
ismrequiredspecialattentionandfurtherclariWcation.Fritzturned
out to be one of the three reviewers of this book for Oxford
University Press. His thorough comments, and those of the two
anonymous reviewers, helped me greatly in organizing the material
for publication.
A group of friends went over the pre-Wnal draft and
gave me invaluable comments: Kleanthes K. Grohmann, Adam
Szczegielniak, Jairo Nunes, Cheryl Murphy, Dennis Ott, Martin
Reitbauer, and Clemens Mayr. I cannot thank them enough for all
the time they devoted to this project. Clemens Mayr went well
beyond the call of duty as my research assistant, and considerably
improved all aspects of the manuscript I gave him. Without his
knowledge and expertise I wouldn’t have been able to Wnish the
book on time.
Ialsowanttothankmystudents(BalkaO¨ztu¨rk,Ju-EunLee,Masa
Kuno, Hiro Kasai, Taka Kato, So-One Hwang, Bridget Samuels,
Beste Kamali, and Clemens Mayr) for listening to and commenting
Acknowledgements ix
on some of the material that made it into this book, and my senior
colleagues in the department of linguistics at Harvard, Jim Huang
and Jay JasanoV, for giving me much-valued freedom in designing
courses and other projects, and more generally for creating an
atmosphere in which I can thrive. In this context, I want to thank
our department administrator, Cheryl Murphy, for greatly facilitat-
ing my research by making administrative duties (almost) a pleas-
ure, and for providing good cheers.
StephenJayGouldcannolongerreadthisbook,buthisinXuence
on me will be obvious throughout the text. He is sorely missed.
For commenting on portions of the manuscript and/or taking
timetotalkaboutthemeaningoftheminimalistprogramwithme,
thanks go to (in no particular order): Sylvain Bromberger, Morris
Halle, Lyle Jenkins, Justin Leiber, Andrea Moro, Jan-Wouter Zwart,
Jean-Roger Vergnaud, Robert Chametzky, David Lightfoot, Sam
Epstein, Richard Kayne, Naoki Fukui, Gary Marcus, and Luigi
Rizzi. Thanks also to Lyndsey Rice, Sarah Barrett, and Chloe
Plummer for expert editing.
I am grateful to my editor, John Davey, for his interest in the
project, his constant encouragement, and his sound advice.
The writing of this book was made possible by various grants
fromHarvardUniversity,which I gratefully acknowledge. Iam also
gratefultomycolleaguesattheMind-Brain-BehaviorInitiativeand
to Martin Nowak at the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, for
creating an environment conducive to the kind of interdisciplinary
research that the study of language requires.
PabloPicasso’sTheBull.StateI–IV(1945)isreproducedinChap-
ter 3 by kind permission of the Artists Rights Society.
Last,butnotleast,Iwanttothankmywife,Youngmi,forherhelp
at all levels, her presence in all circumstances, and her constant
encouragement in spite of the fact that my various projects are all
too often synonymous with more time spent away from home. No
wordscanadequatelyexpresswhatherloveandhercompanionship
in life mean to me. She is the stuV that dreams are made of.