Minimalism and (Applied) Linguistics Elly van Gelderen 16 April 2010

Outline Introduce Minimalism What I find fascinating about this program Share some applications (especially regarding features and parameters)

Minimalist Program Factors: 1.Genetic endowment 2.Experience 3.Principles not specific to language

Chomsky (2007: 3) “(1) genetic endowment, which sets limits on the attainable languages, thereby making language acquisition possible; (2) external data, converted to the experience that selects one or another language within a narrow range; (3) principles not specific to FL. Some of the third factor principles have the flavor of the constraints that enter into all facets of growth and evolution.... Among these are principles of efficient computation”.

My aim Insight in the Faculty of Language through language change in particular where features are concerned And attribute regularity of change to Economy (=third factor)

Language Acquisition and Change: Klima (1965) etc. Generation nGeneration n+1I-languageE-language Figure 1:Model of language acquisition (based on Andersen 1973).

Building blocks Features –semantic –phonological –Formal Parameters: only in terms of features - CS - L2 and L1

A derivation Selection from the Lexicon: {saw, it, T, Martians} Merge: sawMartians[…] Further Merge (EM and IM) and Agree/valuation of the features

Ctd: (1) vVP [i-ACC] [u-phi]VD sawMartians [i-3P] [u-ACC]

Two interfaces After merge and agree: PHONSEM (was PF)(was LF) Sensorimotor Conceptual- Interpretative

+/- Interpretable Features Interpretable ones (Person and number on nouns, Tense, Aspect, Mood) are: Relevant at C-I Interface But: Why do languages have uninterpretable features (as well as Edge and EPP?)

L1 (Interpretable) (1)all gone (Allison 1:8, Bloom 1973) (2)walk school (Allison 1:8, Bloom 1973) (3)baby eat cookie (Allison 1:10, Bloom 1973) (4)sit down right here next truck (Allison 1:10, Bloom 1973) (5)horse cow ‘horse and cow’ (Allison 1:10, Bloom 1973)

Late Merge of like (1)like a cookie (Abe, 3.7.5) (2)no the monster crashed the planes down like this like that (Abe, 3.7.5) (3)I wan(t) (t)a show you something # I mean like this thin ? (Abe, 3.7.5) (4)I feel like having a pet do you? (Abe, ) (5)watch it walks like a person walks. (Abe, ) (6)Daddy # do you teach like you do [//] like how they do in your school? (Abe, )

For: P to C (1)this picture is mine for myself (Abe ) (2)how long you grow up for a minute (Abe ) (3)Mom # I'm glad you are making a rug for out in the hall. (Abe ) (4)yeah and I said I was waiting and waiting for you to come and I [/] (Abe, 3.2.1)

What is happening to the features? (1)Momy you wiping (Allison 1:8, Bloom 1973) The child `discovers’ uninterpretable features: (2)I'm gonna sit on here (Allison 2:4, Bloom 1973)

What should UG give the learner? Phi-features `Case' (for head-marking) (for dependent-marking) yesnoyesno KoreanKoreanNavajo u-Fi-FEnglish EnglishNavajo

Economy? Feature Economy Minimize the semantic and interpretable features in the derivation, e.g: AdjunctSpecifierHeadaffix semantic>[iF]>[uF]>[uF]

Let’s look at Language Change : Specifier > Head: Demonstrative pronoun that to C Demonstrative pronoun to article Negative adverb to negation marker Adverb to aspect marker PP to C Full pronoun to agreement

Late Merge and language change: On, from P to ASP VP Adverbials > TP/CP Adverbials Like, from P > C (like I said) Negative objects to negative markers Modals: v > ASP > T Negative verbs to auxiliaries To: P > ASP > M > C PP > C (for him to do that...)

Grammaticalization

(1)phrase > word/head > clitic > affix > 0 adjunct > argument > agreement > 0 (2)lexical head > grammatical > 0

Cognitive Economy Principles help the learner, e.g: Phrase > head (minimize structure) Avoid too much movement XP SpecX' XYP Y…

Head Preference and Late Merge (1) a.FPb.FP F… proF’ proF… (2) a.TPb.TP TVPTVP mightV’V' V...V... might

Examples of Cycles Subject and Object Agreement demonstrative/emphatic > pronoun > agreement > zero Copula Cycle ademonstrative > copula > zero bverb > aspect > copula Case or Definiteness or DP demonstrative > definite article > ‘Case’ > zero Negative a negative argument > negative adverb > negative particle > zero b verb > aspect> negative > C Future and Aspect Auxiliary A/P > M > T > C

Negative Cycle in Old English CE a.no/neearly Old English b.ne(na wiht/not)after 900, esp S c.(ne)notafter 1350 d.not>-not/-n’tafter 1400

The Negative Cycle XP SpecX' na wihtXYP not> n’t…

DP Cycle (old way) a.DPb.DP demD'  D'(=HPP) DNPDNP artN  c.DP D' DNP -n>0N renewal through LMP

or through Feature Economy: a.DP>b.DP thatD'D' [i-ps]DNPDNP [i-loc][u-#]N…theN [i-phi][u-phi] [i-phi] Hence (1)*I saw the (2)I saw that/those.

Dutch-Afrikaans (1)die man daar that man there (2)Daardie teenstrydighede was egter nie those contradictions were however not

How are parameters and features relevant to AL L1 and L2 CS and bilingualism Text recognition

Some references Chomsky, Noam Approaching UG from below, in Uli Sauerland et al. (eds), Interfaces + Recursion = Language, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Gelderen, Elly van to appear. The Linguistic Cycle: Language Change and the Language Faculty. OUP.