T. Daniel Seely

Samuel D. Epstein

Hisatsugu Kitahara

This volume presents a series of papers written by Epstein, Kitahara and Seely, each of which explores fundamental linguistic questions and analytical mechanisms proposed in recent minimalist work, specifically concerning recent analyses by Noam Chomsky. The collection includes eight papers by the collaborators (one with Miki Obata), plus three additional papers, each individually authored by Epstein, Kitahara and Seely, that cover a range of related topics including: the minimalist commitment to explanation via simplification; the Strong Minimalist Thesis; strict adherence to simplest Merge, Merge (X, Y) = {X, Y}, subject to 3rd factor constraints; and state-of-the-art concepts and consequences of Chomsky’s most recent proposals. For instance, the volume clarifies and explores: the properties of Merge, feature inheritance and Agree; the nature of phases, cyclicity and countercyclicity; the properties of Transfer; the interpretation of features and their values and the role formal features play in the form and function of syntactic operations; and the specific properties of derivations, partially ordered rule application, and the nature of interface representations. At the cutting edge of scholarship in generative syntax, this volume will be an essential resource for syntax researchers seeking to better understand the minimalist program.

Explorations in Maximizing Syntactic Minimization

Hisatsugu Kitahara advances Noam Chomsky's Minimalist Program (1995) with a number of innovative proposals. In Elementary Operations and Optimal Derivations, Hisatsugu Kitahara advances Noam Chomsky's Minimalist Program (1995) with a number of innovative proposals. The analysis is primarily concerned with the elementary operations of the computational system for human language and with the principles of Universal Grammar that constrain derivations generated by that system. Many conditions previously assumed to be axiomatic are deduced from the interaction of more fundamental principles of Universal Grammar. Kitahara first unifies disparate syntactic operations by appeal to more elementary operations. He then determines the set of optimal derivations involving only legitimate steps and demonstrates how, without stipulation, these derivations characterize a number of linguistic expressions that have long occupied the center of syntactic investigation. This monograph also includes a clear explication of the distinct but closely related analyses presented in Chomsky's work of the early 1990s. This exposition makes the book attractive to the general linguistic reader as well as the professional syntactician. Linguistic Inquiry Monograph No. 31

Elementary Operations and Optimal Derivations

Samuel David Epstein

This collection explicates one of the core ideas underpinning Minimalist theory--explanation via simplification. It introduces and advances Minimalist theory for students and scholars in linguistics and related sub-disciplines of psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science.

A Minimalist Theory of Simplest Merge

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.

Hisatsugu Kitahara

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