Chomsky's minimalist program revolutionized the understanding of language, proposing that syntax is separate from meaning and that humans possess an innate language faculty with universal grammar. While many challenged his views, particularly regarding the perfection of language design and its separation from the body, advancements in unification grammars suggest that grammar and meaning might work together with complex feature structures. The document emphasizes the notion of information matching in language processing, indicating that it may not require movement but rather simple pattern-matching in our mental lexicon.

1. The Minimalist Program

2. Chomsky’s theories of language

3. Revolutionized Linguistics

4. X-bar theory

5. Binding

6. Language and the brain

7. New ways of thinking about language

8. Language is a special system

9. Language is innate

10. Very interesting ideas

11. The innateness hypothesis
• Language depends on a SEPARATE system in
the brain
• The Language Faculty (the Language Module)
• We are BORN with Universal Grammar in our
brains!

12. It’s an interesting idea

13. But it’s still just an idea

14. Children practice speaking a lot!

15. 10,000 hours by the time they are 6

16. That’s a lot of practice!

17. Do we need a Language Faculty?

18. Maybe – but it’s NOT conclusive

19. And many people didn’t agree

20. Many didn’t like Chomsky’s ideas
about meaning?

21. Syntax is AUTONOMOUS!

22. Syntax is SEPARATE from meaning!?

23. Why should we believe that?

24. Isn’t binding about meaning?

25. Lakoff said that language is connected
to the body

26. How can it be a separate system?

27. Chomsky’s big claims
• Syntax is separate from meaning
• Many people disagreed
• Language is separate in the mind
• Many people didn’t agree
• But THEN …

28. The Minimalist Program

29. Chomsky’s NEW idea

30. Not ONLY is syntax separate

31. Not ONLY is language separate

32. Language is the perfect design!!

33. Wait!

34. The perfect design!

35. How do you know?!

36. How COULD we know!

37. Lots of people found this difficult to
believe

38. Why SHOULD language have a
PERFECT design?

39. Where’s the proof?

40. We’re still waiting

41. Around this time …

42. Unification grammars were improving

43. Maybe there IS no language faculty

44. Who cares?

45. Maybe grammar and meaning work
together

46. We can do that

47. Grammar and meaning IN words!

48. Maybe there’s no movement

49. We don’t need movement

50. Pattern-matching instead

51. So what’s the problem?

52. Unification grammars

53. Complex feature structures

54. Very complex

55. Very, very COMPLEX

56. So pattern-matching is simple

57. Animals can match patterns, can’t
they?

58. But the patterns are COMPLEX

59. So how does this work?

60. Agreement

61. Information contained in words

62. How does the information match?

63. Words attract certain other words

64. And repel others

65. Imagine this is our mental lexicon

66. Information about words – in our
heads

67. Walks: wants a 3rd person singular
noun phrase

68. Walk: really DOESN’T WANT a 3rd
person singular noun phrase

69. It seems natural that this information
matches

70. The information is shared

71. Features are matched

72. Chomsky needs information in the
lexicon

73. And he needs the information to
match

74. But he ALSO needs movement of
features

75. Unification grammars just unify the
information

76. No movement

77. Grammatical info and meaning info

78. [She] is 3rd, sing, fem

79. Walks takes a subject that is 3rd, sing

80. The CONT (meaning) of [walks]

81. … matches the meaning of the subject

82. This information is in the lexicon

83. When the words [she] and [walks]
combine …

84. … the information MATCHES

85. The CONTENT information in the
subject …

86. … matches with the CONTENT
information in the verb

87. The same information appears in new
places

88. What about the purple [3]?

89. Rule: the content of a phrase = the
content of the head

90. It kind of LOOKS like movement

91. But it’s really information MATCHING

92. The CONTENT is carried up the HEAD
(it’s a rule)

93. So the purple [3] looks like it moves

94. But it’s just feature sharing (matching)

95. I know … it’s complex

96. Lots of information

97. But if you practice a little

98. You’ll get used to it

99. We WILL practice

100. … the information MATCHES