Principles & Parameters Theory and Minimalism

The central problem for the linguistic theory, often referred to as Plato's problem, is how children are able to acquire language despite the impoverished nature of the linguistic data they are exposed to. The Principles and Parameters approach provides a viable solution to Plato's problem. The basic idea is that children are biologically endowed with a set of principles, which are invariant across languages, and a set of parameters, which provide limited options for language variation and which can be easily set on the basis of the linguistic data children are exposed to. These principles and parameters comprise what is referred to as Universal Grammar, a genetic endowment which helps children acquire language and as such represents an answer to Plato's problem in the domain of language. Principles are not subject to language variation, they hold across all languages with equal force. As an illustration, the Theta Criterion (which may be at least partially subsumable under a broader Principle of Full Interpretation, see below) is responsible for the ungrammaticality of *John is likely that Mary is sleeping. The example contains an argument, namely John, which does not bear a theta role, in violation of the Theta Criterion, which requires that all arguments bear theta roles (as well as that all theta roles be assigned.) By providing options parameters account for a good amount of language variation. The head parameter is one such parameter, posited early on in the Government and Binding Theory. According to this parameter, languages differ regarding whether their heads precede or follow complements. Thus, in English both verbs and prepositions precede their complements, while in Japanese they follow them (but see the discussion of Kayne 1994 below). Borer (1984), however, restricts the notion of parameters by assuming that all parameters are lexical, which reduces parametric variation to differences among lexical items, a further restriction being that the variation is tied only to differences among functional elements (i.e. grammatical elements like inflection). 1.Government and Binding Theory Government and Binding theory (GB) is the version of the Principles and Parameters approach that was dominant in the 80s. GB is a modular theory which divides grammar into a number of distinct subcomponents with a powerful transformational component based on the rule Move Alpha, which in principle allows any element to move anywhere at any point. Overgeneration is handled by having various modules filter out the undesired structures. Four levels of representation are posited where conditions of UG apply, filtering out the illicit structures: D-structure (DS), S-structure (SS), Logical Form (LF), and Phonological Form (PF). DS, SS, and LF together constitute the syntactic levels of representation. The central grammatical relation is government, a powerful grammar-internal (in a sense that it is not determined by anything outside of the grammar) relation that crucially holds in a number of otherwise distinct modules.