Abstract

The Minimalist Program in generative syntax has been the subject of much rancour, a good proportion of it stoked by Noam Chomsky’s suggestion that language may represent “a ‘perfect solution’ to minimal design specifications.” A particular flash point has been the application of Minimalist principles to speculations about how language evolved in the human species. This paper argues that Minimalism is well supported as a plausible approach to language evolution. It is claimed that an assumption of minimal design specifications like that employed in MP syntax satisfies three key desiderata of evolutionary and general scientific plausibility: Physical Optimism, Rational Optimism, and Darwin’s Problem. In support of this claim, the methodologies employed in MP to maximise parsimony are characterised through an analysis of recent theories in Minimalist syntax, and those methodologies are defended with reference to practices and arguments from evolutionary biology and other natural sciences.

Highlights

  • There is no point in using the word ‘impossible’ to describe something that has clearly happened. (Douglas Adams)The Minimalist Program in generative syntax has been the subject of much rancour, a good proportion of it stoked by Chomsky’s suggestion that “language design may really be optimal in some respects, approach[ing] a ‘perfect solution’ to minimal design specifications” (Chomsky, 2000a: 93)

  • A particular flash point has been the application of Minimalism to speculation about how language evolved in the human species, most prominently represented by the Merge-only hypothesis in generative syntax (Chomsky, 2000b) and the saltationalist claims often made in parallel (Hauser et al, 2002)

  • This section exemplifies the methodologies of redundancy, economy, and efficiency as they are applied to reaching the goal of a plausible faculty of language (FL)

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Summary

Introduction

There is no point in using the word ‘impossible’ to describe something that has clearly happened. This paper presents the countering view that what we know about biological design—and the kinds scientific inference needed to explain it—substantiate Minimalism as a plausible evolutionary hypothesis.

Optimality and Evolution
Darwin’s Problem and Parsimony
Three ‘Optimalities’
Parsimony and ‘Principled Explanation’
Discrete Infinity
Displacement
Binding Theory
Summary
The Objectives of Minimalism
The Merge-Only Hypothesis
The Copy Theory of Movement
C-Command and INTERNAL MERGE
Two Justifications for Rational Optimism
Likelihood and Parsimony
Conjunctive Forks
The Principle of the Common Cause and Cladistic Parsimony
A tangential note on the terminology of cladistic analysis
The Problem of ‘Over-Fitting’
The Akaike Information Criterion
Physical Optimism
Homeostatic Rhythms and Cortical Entrainment
Efficiency and Energy-Minimisation
Findings
Full Text
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