This paper reconsiders the status of parameters and parametric variation from the perspective of recent developments within the minimalist program, in particular the problem that arises if parameters can no longer be part of UG, which must be maximally empty, and if variation is instead to be explained in terms of third-factor considerations (section 1). I pursue the idea that variation arises ...

In recent years, the issue of the origins of human language has clearly been restored as an honorable topic of investigation. After having opposed any evolutionary perspective on the faculty of language for many years (e.g. Chomsky 1975), even Chomsky now not only recognizes that such a perspective is important, but also that it may actually be investigated in a scientific manner (cf. Hauser, C...

The Minimalist Program (Chomsky 1995, 2000) and Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993, 2004) are not alternative theories logically inconsistent with each other. Optimality Theory is a theory of how universal constraints of grammar interact (Prince and Smolensky 1993, Grimshaw 2005). Minimalism, as Chomsky notes (2000:41), is a research program –not a theory– investigating to what extent...

The principal goal of Chomskyan linguistics is to account for language acquisition; the core postulate is that the child has available linguistically detailed innate knowledge, known as Universal Grammar (UG). Critical to this postulate is the poverty of the stimulus argument that the child’s target grammar is “hopelessly underdetermined by the fragmentary evidence available” (Chomsky, 1968). U...

Our aim is to defend the Precautionary Principle (PP) against main theoretical and practical criticisms that it has raised by proposing a novel conception specific formulation of principle. We first address concerns idea there being principle precaution arguing for distinctively political PP as opposed moral one. claim rationale grounded in fact contemporary societies wish avoid morally unaccep...

The research gives an account to the concept of E. Herman and N. Chomsky, focused on role media in manufacturing elite consent modern American society. Two leading approaches power – liberal-pluralistic critical political economy forms framework research. genesis content "manufacturing consent" is considered. Neo–Marxist tradition analysis background authors' production as a means nonviolent do...

We define a notion of finite type invariants for links with a fixed linking matrix. We show that Milnor's link homotopy invariant ¯ µ(ijk) is a finite type invariant, of type 1, in this sense. We also generalize this approach to Milnor's higher order ¯ µ invariants and show that they are also, in a sense, of finite type. Finally, we compare our approach to another approach for defining finite t...

The work argues the principle of equivalence to be a theorem and not a principle (in a sense of an axiom). It contains a detailed analysis of the concepts of normal and inertial frame of reference. The equivalence principle is proved to be valid (at every point and along every path) in any gravitational theory based on linear connections. Possible generalizations of the equivalence principle ar...