基本説明
Cedric Boeckx examines the foundations and explains the underlying philosophy of the Minimalist Program for linguistic theory, the most radical version to date of Noam Chomsky's naturalistic approach to language. He exemplifies its methods, considers the significance of its results, and explores its roots and antecedents. He disentangles and clarifies current debates and shows how the Minimalist Program lies at the centre of the enterprise to understand the human language faculty. The book is written for everyone in and outside the field who wants to know about current developments in theoretical linguistics.
Full Description
The Minimalist Program for linguistic theory is Noam Chomsky's boldest and most radical version of his naturalistic approach to language. Cedric Boeckz examines its foundations, explains its underlying philosophy, exemplifies its methods, and considers the significance of its empirical results. He explores the roots and antecedents of the Program and shows how its methodologies parallel those of sciences such as physics and biology. He disentangles and clarifies current debates and issues around the nature of minimalist research in linguistics and shows how the aims and ambitions of the Minimalist Program lie at the centre of the enterprise to understand how the human language faculty operates in the mind and is manifested in the world's languages.
Professor Boeckx writes for advanced and graduate students of linguistics and for all those, in fields such as cognitive science and evolutionary biology, who want to know more about current developments in theoretical linguistics.
Contents
1. The Minimalist Gamble ; 1.1 Minimalism in a nutshell ; 1.2 How to approach minimalism ; 1.3 Author's aims ; 2. The Minimalist roots ; 2.1 The birth of modern biolinguistics ; 2.2 Levels of Adequacy ; 2.3 The Poverty of Stimulus, and what must be done about it ; 2.4 Computational properties of the language organ ; 2.4.1 Early results ; 2.4.2 Later developments ; 2.4.3 Parameters ; 2.5 Conclusion ; 3. The Minimalist Core ; 3.1 The Minimalist Core ; 3.1.1 The Minimalist Core ; 3.1.2 Some Generalizations ; 3.2 Taking stock ; 3.3 The notion of 'program' and how it applies to minimalism ; 3.3.1 Program vs. Theory ; 3.3.2 Lakatos on research programs ; 3.4 Conclusion ; 4. The Minimalist Impact ; 4.1 The Galilean Style in science ; 4.2 Why-questions ; 4.3 Beauty in science ; 4.4 The Galilean Style and Biology ; 4.4.1 Linguistics as biology ; 4.4.2 Two scientific cultures ; 4.4.3 Back to Laws of Form ; 4.4.4 The evolution of the language faculty ; 4.4.5 Language and cognition ; 4.5 Conclusion ; 5. Minimalist Highlights ; 5.1. Caveat lector ; 5.2. Evaluating the objections to the program ; 5.3. Specific minimalist analyses ; 5.3.1. Control ; 5.3.2. Copies and linearization ; 5.3.3. A constraint on multiple wh-fronting ; 5.3.4. Successive cyclicity ; 5.3.5. Bare Phrase Structure ; 5.3.6. Sluicing ; 5.3.7. Parasitic gaps ; 5.3.8. Existential constructions ; 5.4. Conclusion ; 6. The minimalist Seduction
