Preliminary Version
Final Version Will be Given Out In Class

1. Chomsky on Goals, Methods, Theory, and Data, Introductory Lecture
2. I. Concepts of Explanation: Internal and External
3. II. Leading Ideas Regarding Explanation and Description
4. III. Explanation in the Minimalist Program
5. IV. Arguments For and Against the Minimalist Program
6. The Evolution of "Explanation in Linguistics", Concluding Lecture

(RES) means the article in on reserve in Bobst and at 719 Broadway, fifth floor. (HARD) means this article is difficult and is for reference.

1. Chomsky and C.S. Peirce on goals, methods, theory, and data
In this course we will ask: 'What would Charles Sanders Peirce have said about developments in Linguistics since 1957 and about the current state of the art in generative studies?' A grammar defines a set of sentences/structures. A grammar defines the sound-meaning pairs of a language.

• C.S. Peirce, How to Make our Ideas Clear. (RES)
• Chomsky, The Minimalist Program, Introduction, pp. 1-11
• Chomsky and Lasnik, The Theory of Principles and Parameters, pp. 1-35
• Lovejoy, Arthur O. 1936/1960. The Great Chain of Being: A study in the history of an idea. New York, Harper Torchbooks, Introduction: the study of the history of ideas, pp. 1-23. (RES)

I. Concepts of Explanation: Internal and External

The classroom discussion will focus on the material in Chomsky's 'Cartesian Linguistics'.
Focus on why language acquisition models play a role in explanation.

2. Cartesian Linguistics: Cognitive psychology and 'innate ideas'
Three basic ideas of Cartesian Linguistics: (a) language acquisition and learning, (b) Infinite use of finite means, or recursion, and (c) abstract structure, such as deep structure, D-structure, empty categories, traces, and so on. For recursion we will discuss: coordination, subordination, and adjuncts. We mention selection, cooccurrence, and so on.

• St. Augustine, The Master. (RES)
• Chomsky, Noam. 1966. Language and Mind, The Present, pp. 1-23. (RES)
• Arnauld, Antoine. 1662. La Logique, or L'art de Penser. Translated and reprinted 1964. The Art of Thinking: Port-Royal Logic. New York: Bobbs Merril Company, Introduction, Preface, etc., pp i-lx. (RES)

3. Explanation, language acquisition, and learnability
What is the role of 'mental organs' and so on in explanation and description? Is all 'explanation' tied to the language acquisition device and learnability considerations? Should one study a single particular language in depth, contrast radically different languages, contrast close dialects, or study many languages in a comparative way? What is a 'toy grammar'? Is such a concept relevant in Chomsky's research program? Why not?

• Gazdar, Gerald and Christopher Mellish. 1989. Natural Language Processing in Prolog: An Introduction to Computational Linguistics. New York: Addison Wesley, Preface, v-xi; Introduction, pp. 1-20.
• Baker, Mark. 1988. Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Introduction, pp. 1-23; Incorporation Theory, pp. 24-39.
• Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Chapter 1. Methodological Preliminaries. pp. 1-62

4. Language acquisition, Plato's problem, and 'displacements'
We will discuss 'displacements': unbounded, like wh- questions and relatives; and bounded, like passive, seem, there is, easy, particle constructions, clitics, and believe-type verbs. Which are worse (i.e. harder to describe/explain) bounded or unbounded?

• Gardner, Howard. 1980. Foreword. In: Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo. (ed.) 1980. Language and Learning: The debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. xix-xxxvi.
• Piattelli-Palmarini, Massimo. (ed.) 1980. Language and Learning: The debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Preface, Introduction, pp 1-23.
• Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of Language, pp. 1-51. (Read about Plato's problem)

II. Leading Ideas Regarding Explanation and Description

The classroom discussion will focus on the material in Lisa Cheng's 'On the Typology of Wh-Questions.'
Read the dissertation. Focus on morphological correlates of wh- displacements.

5. C.S. Peirce on scientific theories
failibility, design of experiments, crucial/neutral examples, strength of arguments. The Peirce materials are available over the WWW.

• Peirce, C.S. How to Make Our Ideas Clear.
• Huang, C.T. James. 1995. 'Logical Form.' In Webelhuth, (ed.), pp. 127-138, 169-173.
• Chomsky, Noam. 1994. Categories and Transformations, '4.2.1. The Computational Component.', pp. 225-235, especially pp. 233-4.

6. Cheng's typology of wh-questions
What are the 'natural classes' of phenomena in Cheng's system? What is a wh-question? What types of 'displacement' or 'movement' can occur? Why is there 'displacement' at all?

• Peirce, C.S. Some Consequences of Four Incapacities.
• Read the passages in Cheng that indicate (1) what types of wh- displacements occur in various languages and (2) what morphological correlates these displacement have.
• What types of wh- displacements are impossible? What are the morphological correlates?

7. C.S. Peirce on the strength of arguments
Arguments can be rated for strength, and the scale relates to 'learnability' and language acquisition. What is a 'leading idea'?

• Read the passages in Cheng that indicate (2) why some languages have overt wh- displacements and why others do not.
• Why are some types of wh- displacements impossible? What morphological principles block the possibilities?
• Peirce, C.S. 'On the Strength of Arguments,' (handout)

III. Explanation in the Minimalist Program

The classroom discussion will focus on the material in Chomsky's 'The Minimalist Program.'
We will focus on Exceptional Case Marking vebs, Wh- displacements, and Strong Features.

8. All 'movement' or 'displacement' is morphologically driven
Constituents move in the old view, or features are attracted in the new view for a 'morphological' reason. The movement/attraction is 'driven' by a 'greed' felt by the constituent or features to be licensed by pairing/mating or matching features on a higher, often abstract, node. We discuss greed for features of case, person, number, gender, tense, and so on using formatives like 'seem,' 'be + en,' 'easy,' and so on. But what morphological property drives movement or attraction in a verb like 'believe'? We will argue that 'believe' raising is a major exception to the morphologically driven movement assumption.

• Chomsky and Lasnik, The Theory of Principles and Parameters, pp. 58
• Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of Language, pp. 188-192, especially example (261).

9. Agreement, abstract heads, morphology, and 'strong' features
Problems in the theory of questions and relatives. (a) wh- movement is a consequence of a 'strong' feature on the comp node. We analyze Chomsky's discussion of this strong feature. (b) strings like 'the cover of which book' suggest that the grammar must replace 'constituent movement' with 'feature attraction' as a basic process in syntax and semantics. We discuss 'reconstruction.'

• Halle, Morris, and Alec Marantz. 1993. Distributed Morphology and the Pieces of Inflection. In: Hale, Kenneth and Samuel Jay Keyser. 1993. The View from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, Section 6, "Summary and Postscript," pp. 166-171.
• Read about 'Exceptional Case Marking Verbs' in any books articles you want.

10. The leading ideas of 'explanation' in the minimalist program
Several people have excellent introductory discussions of the Minimallist Program. Halle and Marantz discuss the morphological aspects of movement. Marantz gives a brief discussion with some examples of derivations.

• Marantz, Alec. 1995. The Minimalist Program. In: Webelhuth, Gert. (ed.) Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Program. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, Ltd., pp. 351-382.

IV. Arguments For and Against the Minimalist Program

The classroom discussion will focus on the material in Johnson and Lappin's 'A Critique of the Minimalist Program.'

11. Johnson and Lappin on the Minimalist Program
We outline the main arguments of Johnson and Lappin and discuss their bearing on Chomsky's proposals.

• There is a new version of the Johnson and Lappin paper. When I obtain the new (latest) copy, I will assign the readings.

12. Explanation and description in the system of Johnson and Lappin
We examine the explanatory power of the Johnson and Lappin system in terms of theory internal explanation and theory external explanation.

• To be announced.

13. Chomsky's view of the major conceptual shifts in Linguistics
We discuss (a) I- versus E-language, (b) principles and parameters theories, (c) the elimination of phrase structure rules, (d) the abandonment of 'constructions', (e) the concept of 'attract features' versus 'move constituent'.

• To be announced.

14. The evolution of "Explanation in Linguistics"

• To be announced.