The document discusses criticisms of Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar and the innateness of language. It notes that Chomsky's theory proposes that language is a separate, innate faculty of the brain, but many linguists disagree with this view and think language develops through use and social interaction. It also discusses how unification grammars provide alternatives to Chomsky's theory by analyzing syntax and semantics together without positing movement of syntactic elements.

1. The Minimalist Program

2. Chomsky’s theories of language

3. Revolutionized Linguistics

4. X-bar theory

5. Notice that Phrases have heads!

6. Binding

7. Language and the brain

8. New ways of thinking about language

9. Language is a special system

10. Language is innate

11. Very interesting ideas

12. 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!

13. It’s an interesting idea

14. But it’s still just an idea

15. Children practice speaking a lot!

16. 10,000 hours by the time they are 6

17. That’s a lot of practice!

18. They use language a LOT

19. Maybe language develops with USE?

20. Many people think so

21. Usage in social activity

22. Do we need a Language Faculty?

23. Maybe – but it’s NOT conclusive

24. Many disagree now

25. Chomsky’s theory is implausible!

26. Implausible = unbelievable

27. Unbelievable – not in a good way

28. And many people didn’t agree forty
years ago

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

30. Syntax is AUTONOMOUS!

31. Syntax is SEPARATE from meaning!?

32. Why should we believe that?

33. Tense is NOT meaning?

34. Agreement is NOT meaning?

35. Meaning is NOT in the words!!?

36. Everything comes from syntactic
movement

37. Isn’t binding about meaning?

38. No connection with semantics?!

39. Isn’t the tense of love part of the
meaning of the word?

40. Isn’t subject-verb agreement partly
meaning?

41. Is movement necessary for
agreement?

42. Lakoff said that language is connected
to the body

43. How can it be a separate system?

44. Chomsky’s big claims
• Syntax is separate from meaning
• Many people disagreed
• Language is separate in the mind
• Many people didn’t agree
• Where’s your evidence?
• Where’s your proof?
• But THEN …

45. The Minimalist Program

46. Chomsky’s NEW idea

47. Not ONLY is syntax separate

48. Not ONLY is language separate

49. Language is the perfect design!!

50. Wait!

51. The perfect design!

52. How do you know?!

53. How COULD we know!

54. Lots of people found this difficult to
believe

55. Why SHOULD language have a
PERFECT design?

56. Where’s the proof?

57. We’re still waiting

58. Then Minimalism gave us MORE
structure!

59. Before there was just an Inflectional
Phrase

60. IP split into AgrP and TP!

61. I thought Minimalist meant LESS!

62. Not MORE!

63. That’s a bit strange!

64. Around this time …

65. Unification grammars were improving

66. Unification Grammars have NO TP or
AgrP

67. Sentences are VPs

68. AgrP and TP is just fog

69. Get rid of it

70. Like this

71. Like this

72. Call it a sentence if you want

73. But it’s a kind of VP

74. A Sentence is a VP PLUS a subject

75. There’s no tense phrase

76. There’s no Agr Phrase

77. Agreement and Tense are IN the words

78. In the lexicon

79. So what’s the problem?

80. Maybe there IS no language faculty

81. Who cares?

82. Maybe grammar and meaning work
together

83. We can do that

84. Grammar and meaning IN words!

85. Maybe there’s no movement

86. We don’t need movement

87. Pattern-matching instead

88. So what’s the problem?

89. Unification grammars

90. Complex feature structures

91. Very complex

92. Very, very COMPLEX

93. So pattern-matching is simple

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

95. But the patterns are COMPLEX

96. So how does this work?

97. Agreement

98. Information contained in words

99. How does the information match?

100. Words attract certain other words

101. And repel others

102. Valence or Subcategorization

103. Imagine this is our mental lexicon

104. Information about words – in our
heads

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

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

107. It seems natural that this information
matches

108. The information is shared

109. Features are matched

110. Chomsky needs information in the
lexicon

111. And he needs the information to
match

112. But he ALSO needs movement of
features

113. Unification grammars just unify the
information

114. No movement

115. Grammatical info and meaning info

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

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

118. The CONT (meaning) of [walks]

119. … matches the meaning of the subject

120. This information is in the lexicon

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

122. … the information MATCHES

123. The CONTENT information in the
subject …

124. … matches with the CONTENT
information in the verb

125. The same information appears in new
places

126. What about the purple [3]?

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

128. It kind of LOOKS like movement

129. It looks like CONTENT is moving up the
tree

130. But it’s really information MATCHING

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

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

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

134. Let’s make it simple

135. Words carry information

136. She carries information

137. Walks carries information

138. Walks has partial information

139. About the subject it wants to attract

140. Match them up

141. And the information matches

142. If possible

143. From this

144. To this

145. I know … this looks complicated

146. But it’s ONE SIMPLE mechanism

147. Matching things up

148. Lots of information

149. But if you practice a little

150. You’ll get used to it

151. We WILL practice

152. But nothing difficult

153. So don’t worry

154. … the information MATCHES

155. Subcategorization
• SUBCAT or Valence features show what a verb
wants to ATTRACT.

156. Chomsky’s enemies
• Chomsky’s enemies suggest that language
develops in USE.

157. • What did Unification Grammar do with AgrP
and TP?
• It got rid of it
• It threw it in the garbage

158. • How do Unification Grammars deal with Tense
and Agreement?
• It’s partly in the meaning of the words
• They use pattern matching

159. What’s the problem with the PERFECT
DESIGN idea?
• Don’t know what it means
• Don’t know how to prove it
• There’s no reason to believe in it

160. Walks SUBCAT
• SUBCAT
• <NP[nom]
• PERSON 3rd
• NUMBER Sing
• NUMBER x >

161. What’s NP[nom]?
• He is nominative case
• Him is accusative case
• We is nominative case
• Us is accusative case

162. Kicks SUBCAT|SUBJ
• NP[nom]
• Anything but THIS:
• PERSON 3rd
• NUMBER Sing
• NUMBER x >

163. Kicks COMPLEMENT
<NP[acc] PERSON x
NUMBER x
GENDER x >

164. • So kicks will accept any accusative
complement
• But reject nominative complements

165. Thinks SUBCAT|SUBJ
• SUBCAT
• <NP[nom]
• PERSON 3rd
• NUMBER Sing
• NUMBER x >

166. Same as Walks SUBCAT|SUBJ
• SUBCAT
• <NP[nom]
• PERSON 3rd
• NUMBER Sing
• NUMBER x >

167. Thinks COMPLEMENT(OBJECT)
• SENTENCE (+ tense)

168. Think hates 3rd person singular
subjects