LSA.242 | Problems and Prospects of the Minimalist Program

Noam Chomsky
MTW 7:00-10:00pm (July 25-27)
location: 10-250

The Minimalist Program (MP) is concerned with the core questions of traditional and modern linguistic inquiry: What are the distinguishing features of the human language faculty?  The questions were reshaped in generative grammar, and within the "biolinguistic perspective," they become questions about the interaction of (1) genetic endowment, (2) experience, and (3) principles holding more generally in determining attained languages.  In recent years, there have been more intensive efforts to explore factor (3), and to seek explanations for linguistic phenomena that go "beyond explanatory adequacy," in the technical sense.  The course will consider a sample of ideas, proposals, and problems currently on the research agenda.