Of Minds and Language (84 page)

  
²
See Rizzi (2006b), and for a general discussion of the issue of intermediate movement, Boeckx (2008).

  
³
We can assume that featurally complex positions like Q Top may be created by head movement, but they don't have to be, so there will always be the possibility of not creating Q Top in the embedded clause, which will permit extraction of the D-linked wh-phrase in one fell swoop, as shown by the possible lack of wh-agreement on the main verb in Chamorro.

  
¹
To say that a feature is uninterpretable is to make a negative claim. A more developed theory might show us how what looks uninterpretable at this stage is in the end interpretable when seen under the appropriate light. That said, I know of no successful account of Case as interpretable that is compatible with the minimalist perspective.

  
²
The idea “that all options are open: the edge- and Agree-features of the probe can apply in either order, or simultaneously” (Chomsky 2005a: 17).

  
³
He observes that one “can, in point of fact, just make one sound at a time, … a consequence of the applications of the laws of nature to the human mouth” (Higginbotham 1983b: 151).

  
⁴
A push-down automaton (PDA) recognizes a context-free grammar, by defining a stack within the computational memory tape, with a corresponding “stack alphabet” (e.g., non-terminals like NP or VP). This stack memory permits access only to the most recently stored symbol in making decisions about what state to go to next. See Stabler (2003).

  
⁵
This type of operation creates arbitrarily long strings within the confines of a finite state automaton (FSA), by endlessly repeating a concrete state through a looped process. It constitutes, in effect, a form of unboundedness without internal structure.

  
⁶
In one formulation, “mild context-sensitivity,” which involves polynomial parsing complexity, constant growth, and limited crossing dependencies (see Stabler 2003).

  
⁷
Transposable elements (mobile DNA sequences inserted “horizontally” into genomes) repli cate fast and efficiently, particularly when they are of viral origin.

  
⁸
The proteins encoded by the recombination-activating RAG genes are essential in the recom bination reaction that results in the assembly of antigen receptors. These proteins were once components of a transposon, the split nature of antigen receptor genes deriving from germline insertion of this element into an ancestral receptor gene.

  
⁹
Hauser et al. 2002.

  
¹
For details see Friederici et al. (2006).

  
²
Discussion of a paper presented by Friederici at the Symposium “Interfaces + Recursion = Language? The view from syntax and semantics,” Berlin, 2005.

  
³
See Bahlmann et al. (2006) and a submitted paper.

  
⁴
See
Chapter 22
below.

  
⁵
Addition from June 2008. In a recent FMRI study on processing center-embedded sentences in German we varied syntactic hierarchy and memory (distance between dependent elements) as independent factors. Syntactic hierarchy was reflected in the inferior portion of BA
₄₄
whereas working memory activated the inferior frontal sulcus. The interaction of both factors was observed in the superior portion of BA
₄₄
. The data indicate a segregation of the different computational aspects in the prefrontal cortex.

  
¹
Chomsky (2006).

  
²
As argued below by Luigi Rizzi (see pages 211–219 below).

  
³
I am grateful, as always, to my friend Marcel den Dikken who has exercised some quality control on my claims about syntax in this written version of my round table presentation.

  
⁴
For evidence that some innate knowledge becomes accessible only later in child development see Wexler (1999).

  
⁵
See
Chapter 17
for discussion of
how
difficult it is to model what small children are doing when they are picking up the syntax of their language.

  
⁶
This is one interpretation of the Keenan–Comrie hierarchy (Keenan and Comrie 1977).

  
⁷
Pesetsky (1987) notes that what conditions phenomena such as superiority effects in whconstructions is discourse-linking, not pronominality, even though the two may be related.

  
⁸
Pinker (1984). For an updated approach seeking more principled and universal constraints, see Pinker (1989).

  
⁹
See Kayne (1996).

  
¹⁰
Chapter 1
of Chomsky (1981) and
chapter 3
of Chomsky (1986b).

  
¹¹
For discussion of syntactic markedness within Optimality Theory see Bresnan (2000) and references there.

  
¹²
See
Chapter 1
of Klein (1993).

  
¹³
Chomsky (1981: 8) writes: “outside the domain of core grammar we do not expect to find chaos. Marked structures have to be learned on the basis of slender evidence too, so there should be further structure to the system outside of core grammar. We might expect that the structure of these further systems relates to the theory of core grammar by such devices as relaxing certain conditions of core grammar… ”.

  
¹⁴
See the “tidemark” model in Fodor (1992).

  
¹⁵
See Erteschik-Shir (1997).

  
¹⁶
See J. D. Fodor (2001).

  
¹⁷
See
Chapters 2
and
9
above.

  
¹⁸
In
Chapter 16
I discuss some first steps that I and many colleagues have tried to take in these regards.

  
¹⁹
On the origins of parameter theory see also Baker (2001), and the introductory chapter of Chomsky (2003).

  
²⁰
In the approach of Kayne (1994), the head-complement ordering property is in fact restated as a movement parameter.

  
²¹
Bever (1970). This is also where Bever introduced the famous garden-path sentence “The horse raced past the barn fell” that is evoked on page 287 below. (Editors' note)

  
¹
See
Chapter 4
.

  
²
Parsons (1990).

  
³
Hurewitz et al. (2006).

  
⁴
Gualmini (2003).

  
^*
Partial support for this chapter was provided by NSF ROLE Grant REC-0529579 and research funds from Rutgers University.

  
¹
The proportions in the figure don't add up to 100% in any condition just because of the indeterminacy of what's said, given a situation. Thus children and even adults sometimes respond “They're having fun!” rather than “He's chasing him,” in response to some of these scenes.

  
²
Carey (1985, 2001).

  
¹
Throughout this paper I will simplify discussion by assuming non-noisy input, i.e., that all input sentences are well-formed in the target language.

  
²
Extensive research was initiated by Nina Hyams (1986).

  
³
Parallel parsing is severely limited even in parsing models that permit it. See Gibson and Pearlmutter (2000); also Lewis (2000).

  
⁴
From now on, for brevity, I will use “subset” and “superset” to mean “proper subset” and “proper superset” respectively.

  
⁵
See Werker (1989) and references there.

  
⁶
Performance data for several variants of the lattice model are given in Fodor et al. (2007).

  
⁷
Chomsky (1986a: 146) observes of the approach to evaluation that relies on a default value for each parameter that “this is a necessary and sufficient condition for learning from positive evidence only, insofar as parameters are independent,” but then warns that they “need not and may not be fully independent.” We agree.

  
⁸
Clark (1992).

  
⁹
See J. D. Fodor (1998a).

  
¹⁰
See J. D. Fodor (1998b).

  
¹
See discussion by Noam and Massimo of this, pp. 55–57.

  
²
See Cedric Boeckx's quote of Noam's recent reformulation of this approach,
Chapter 3
above.

  
^*
These remarks are based on what I planned to present at this conference. What follows is influenced by extensive discussions with Noam and the editors. Of course, mistakes and infelicities are all mine.

  
¹
See page 178 above.

  
²
See page 74 above.

  
³
Another relevant passage is:
As in the case of language, the environment is far too impoverished and indeterminate to provide this [the moral] system to the child, in its full richness and applicability. Knowing little about the matter, we are compelled to speculate; but it certainly seems reasonable to speculate that the moral and ethical system acquired by the child owes much to some innate human faculty. The environment is relevant, as in the case of language, vision, and so on; thus we can find individual and cultural divergence. But there is surely a common basis, rooted in our nature. (Chomsky 1988: 153)

  
⁴
Rawls 1971: 46–47.

  
⁵
For a detailed treatement and a complete bibliography, see Hauser (2006).

  
⁶
Mikhail (2000).

  
⁷
Kamm (2000).

  
⁸
Damasio (1994); Bechara et al. (1994).

  
⁹
Koenigs et al. (2007).

  
¹⁰
Gilovich and Medvec (1995).

  
¹¹
Connolly and Zeelemberg (2002).

  
¹²
Rachels (1975).

  
¹³
Knobe (2005). See also Hauser (2006).

  
¹⁴
Petrinovich (1995).

  
¹⁵
Smith and Lewicki (2006).

  
¹⁶
Vouloumanos and Werker (2007); Werker and Vouloumanos (2000).

  
¹⁷
Wright et al. (2000).

  
¹
The Royaumont debate was organized by biologists, among them Piattelli-Palmarini (1994: 322) who said:
There was every reason (in our opinion) to expect that these two schools of thought should find a compromise, and that this grand unified metatheory would fit well within modern molecular biology, and the neurosciences. Both systems [Chomsky's and Piaget's] relied heavily on “deeper” structures, on universals, on precise logico-mathematical schemes, on general biological assumptions. This was music to a biologist's ears.

  
²
The sentence appeared in the text sent with the invitation to this conference. (Editors' note)

  
³
The extent to which animals have phonetic discrimination capacities similar to those of humans is still unknown. I am assuming it is roughly equivalent but nothing in the argument would change if we were to find out that even auditory perception is not equivalent across chinchillas, monkeys, and humans.

  
⁴
See also this volume,
Chapter 13
.

  
⁵
For a compact synthesis, see Baker (2003).

  
⁶
For a historical analysis, connecting these ideas with Chomsky's work, see Miel (1969). (Editors' note)

  
⁷
Crick and Clark (1994).

  
⁸
Bloomfield (1987).

  
⁹
Ibid (1933).

  
¹⁰
Ibid (1939).

  
^*
I would like to thank the organizers of this encounter for the opportunity to take part in it, and all the participants, both speakers and people in the audience, for stimulating views and discussions. Special thanks to Andreu Cabrero, Kepa Erdozia, Aritz Irurtzun, Guillermo Lorenzo, Christophe Pallier, Nuria Sebastián, and Juan Uriagereka for valuable comments and feedback. Misrepresentations and shortcomings are solely mine.

  
¹
Johnson and Newport (1989).

  
¹
Compare Friederici and Alter (2004).

  
²
Compare Friederici (2002), and Friederici and Kotz (2003).

  
³
For a review of these studies see Friederici and Kotz (2003).

  
⁴
I think we do not see a P600 here because subjects were listening passively and at the end of the sentence only had to make a prosodic judgment. Moreover, they were not answering comprehension questions as in the previous experiment by Steinhauer et al. (1999) in which an N400 and a P600 was observed.

  
⁵
For example “Put the frog on the towel in the box.” See Trueswell and Tanenhaus (1994).

  
⁶
Friederici et al. (2007a).

  
⁷
For example, “Peter verspricht # Anna zu arbeiten … ”

  
⁸
For example, “The duck was in the fed.”