I have just finished listening to Chomsky’s fourth lecture
and so this will be the last series of posts on them (here).
If you have not seen them, let me again suggest that you take the time to
watch. They are very good and well worth the (not inconsiderable) time
commitment.
In 4, Chomsky’s does three things. First he again tries to
sell the style of investigation that the lectures as a whole illustrate. Second,
he reviews the motivations and basic results of his way of approaching the
Darwin’s Problem. Third, he proposes
ways of tidying up some of the loose ends that the outline in 3 generates (at
least they were loose ends that I did
not understand). Let me review each of
these points in turn.
1. The central issues and the Strong Minimalist Thesis (SMT)
Chomsky, as is his wont, returns to the key issues as he
sees them. There are two of particular importance.
First, he believes that we should be looking for simple theories. He names this dictum Galileo’s Maxim (GM). GM
asserts (i) that nature is simple and (ii) it is the task of the scientist to
prove that it is. Chomsky notes that this is not merely good general
methodological advice (which it is), but that in the particular context of the
study of FL there are substantive domain specific reasons for adopting it.
Namely: Darwin’s Problem (DP). Chomsky claims that DP rests on three
observations: (i) That our linguistic competence is not learnable from simple
data, (ii) There is no analogue of our linguistic capacity anywhere else in the
natural world, and (iii) The capacity for language emerged recently (in the
last 100k years or so), emerged suddenly and has remained stable in its
properties since its emergence.[1] These three points together imply that we
have a non-trival FL, that it is species specific and that it arose as a result
of a very “simple” addition to ancestor’s cognitive repertoire. So, in addition to the general (i.e. external
to the specific practice of linguistics) methodological
virtues of looking for simple and elegant theories, DP provides a more substantive (i.e. internal to
linguistics) incentive, as simple theories are just the sorts of things that could emerge rapidly in a lineage and
remain stable after emerging.
I very much like this way of framing the central aims of the
Minimalist Program (MP). It reconciles
two apparently contradictory themes that have motivated MP. The first theme is
that looking for simple theories is just good methodology and so MP is nothing
new. On this reading, MP is just the
rational extension of GG theorizing, just the application of general scientific
principles/standards of rational inquiry to linguistic investigations. On this view, MP concerns are nothing new and
the standards MP applies to theory evaluation are just the same as they always
were. The second view, one that also
seems to be a common theme, is that MP does
add a new dimension to inquiry. DP, though always a concern, is now ripe for
investigation. And thinking about DP motivates developing simple theories for
substantive reasons internal to linguistic investigations, motivations in
addition to the standard ones prompted by concerns of scientific hygiene. On this view, raising DP to prominence
changes the relevant standards for theoretical evaluation. Adding DP to Plato’s
Problem, then, changes the nature of the problem to be addressed in interesting
ways.
This combined view, I think, gets MP right. It is both novel and old hat. What Chomsky notes is that at some times,
depending on how developed theory is, new questions can emerge or become
accented and at those times the virtues of simplicity have a bite that goes
beyond general methodological concerns.
Another way of saying this, perhaps, is that there are times (now being
one in linguistics) where the value of theoretical simplicity is elevated and
the task of finding simple non-trivial coherent theories is the central research project. The SMT is
intended to respond to this way of viewing the current project (I comment on
this below).
Chomsky makes a second very important point. He notes that
our explanatory target should be the kinds of effects that GG has discovered
over the last 60 years. Thus, we should
try to develop accounts as to why FL generates an unbounded number of
structured linguistic objects (SLO), why it incorporates displacement
operations, why it obeys locality restrictions (strict cyclicity, PIC), why
there is overt morphology, why there are subject/object asymmetries (Fixed
Subject Effects/ECP), why there are EPP effects, etc. So, Chomsky identifies both
a method of inquiry (viz. Galileo’s
Maxim) and a target of inquiry (viz. the discovered laws and effects of GG).
Theory should aim to explain the second while taking DM very very seriously.
The SMT, as Chomsky sees it, is an example of how to do this
(actually, I don’t think he believes it is an example, but the only possible conceptually coherent way to proceed). Here’s the guts of the SMT: look for the conceptually simplest computational
procedures that generate SLOs and that are interpreted at CI and (secondarily)
SM. Embed these conceptually simple
operations in a computationally efficient
system (one that adheres to obvious and generic principles of efficient
computation like minimal search, No Tampering, Inclusiveness, Memory load
reduction) and show that from these optimal starting points one can derive a
good chunk of the properties that GG has discovered natural language grammars
to have. And, when confronted with
apparent counter-examples to the SMT, look harder for a solution that redeems the
SMT. This, Chomsky argues is the
right way, today, to do theoretical syntax.
I like almost all of this, as you might have guessed. IMO,
the only caveat I would have is that the conceptually simple is often a very
hard to discern. Moreover, what Occam might endorse, DP might not. I have
discussed before that what’s simple in a DP context might well depend on what
was cognitively available to our ancestors prior to the emergence of FL. Thus,
there may be many plausible simple
starting points that lead to different kinds of theories of FL all of which
respond to Chomsky’s methodological and substantive vision of MP. For what it’s
worth, contra Chomsky, I think (or, at least believe that it is rational to
suggest) that Merge is not simple but complex and that it is composed of a more
cognitively primitive operation (viz. Iteration) and a novel part (viz.
Labeling). For those who care about this, I discuss what I have in mind further
here
in part 4 (the finale) of my comments to lecture 3.[2]
However, that said, I could not agree with Chomsky’s general approach more. An
MP that respects DP should deify GM and target the laws of GG. Right on.
[1]
Chomsky has a nice riff where he notes that though it seems to him (and to any
sane researcher) that (i)-(iii) are obviously correct, nonetheless these are
highly controversial claims, if judged by the bulk of research on language. He
particularly zeros in on big data statistical learning types and observes
(correctly in my view) that not only have they not been able to deliver on even
the simplest PoS problems (e.g. structure dependence in Y/N questions) but that
they are currently incapable of
delivering anything of interest given that they have misconstrued the problem
to be solved. Chomsky develops this theme further, pointing out that to date,
in his opinion, we have learned nothing of interest from these pursuits either
in syntax or semantics. I completely agree and have said so here.
Still, I get great pleasure in hearing Chomsky’s completely accurate dismissive
comments.
[2]
I also discuss this in a chapter co-written with Bill Idsardi forthcoming in a
collection edited by Peter Kosta from Benjamins.
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