Thursday, November 27, 2008

A Minimalist Theory with Untyped Features

I read a review by Ash Asudeh and Ida Toivonen of two introductory textbooks on Minimalism. What interests me is the book by Adger:

David Adger, Core syntax: a Minimalist approach. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003. Pp. xiii+424.

This is described as developing a specific coherent theory within the Minimalist Program, and it ends up being close to a lexicalist unification grammar. Like LFG, and unlike HPSG, the feature theory is untyped.

I don't know if there will be a lot of interest, but it may be useful to have a P&P (GB and/or MP) syntax module that can be plugged in to a Linguistic Exploration Environment. Adger's version may be a candidate, because it is more formalizable, and may have some compatibility at the level of feature theory. This allows a clearer connection to the lexicon.

I also have been reading the critique of GB and MP in Culicover and Jackendoff's Simpler Syntax. I am also interested in GB, because Paul Llido uses it in studying Case in Cebuano, mixing it with LFG.

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