Minimalism is functionalism

Golumbia, David

doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2008.07.001

Cited by 44 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Chomsky (2007Chomsky ( , 2010 himself in his latest writings often seems to want to be in two places at once (P&P parameters vs. SMT vacuity), leaving valiant commentators like Golumbia (2010) struggling to make sense of it.…”

Section: Universal Grammarmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time for a sea-change in linguistics: Response to comments on ‘The Myth of Language Universals’

Levinson

Evans

2010

Lingua

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The general issuesThis special issue replays many of the quarrels that have bedeviled the discipline over the last fifty years. Most of these disputes are undignified and ill-informed, and do not serve the discipline well (see e.g. Newmeyer, 1983Newmeyer, , 1999Newmeyer, , 2005. Nevertheless, there is much at stake -in particular the hearts and minds of young scholars whom we hope will advance linguistics. The new generation have excellent instincts for changes in the academic landscape, and they will look for fresh approaches with a clear sense of mission. Discussions of the sort in this special issue are not the place then to make cheap debating points. We all have a sense of a tipping point in the language sciences, and the question is: What is the way forward?We believe that linguistics is on the brink of major changes in data, methods and theory. This was the message we tried to get across in the BBS paper and perhaps especially in our response to the 23 earlier comments in BBS -a response, we suspect, that many of the commentators here have failed to study. A B S T R A C TThis paper argues that the language sciences are on the brink of major changes in primary data, methods and theory. Reactions to 'The myth of language universals' (Evans and Levinson, 2009a,b) divide in response to these new challenges. Chomskyan-inspired 'Clinguists' defend a status quo, based on intuitive data and disparate universalizing abstract frameworks, reflecting 30 years of changing models. Linguists driven by interests in richer data and linguistic diversity, 'D-linguists', though more responsive to the new developments, have tended to lack an integrating framework. Here we outline such an integrative framework of the kind we were presupposing in 'Myth', namely a coevolutionary model of the interaction between mind and cultural linguistic traditions which puts variation central at all levels -a model that offers the right kind of response to the new challenges. In doing so we traverse the fundamental questions raised by the commentary in this special issue: What constitutes the data, what is the place of formal representations, how should linguistic comparison be done, what counts as explanation, what is the source of design in language?Radical changes in data, methods and theory are upon us. The future of the discipline will depend on responses to these changes: either the field turns in on itself and atrophies, or it modernizes, and tries to capitalize on the way language lies at the intersection of all the disciplines interested in human nature. ßIn the response here we try to locate the central issues in this collection of eighteen further responses to our BBS paper. As before, about half are pro and half are con. Here, drawing support from the pros we try to sharpen our own position, while focussing on the cons, to see exactly where the fault lines lie. The issues matter enormously to a discipline which, if it makes the right moves, can regain its centrality as the study of what makes us human, thus linking the humanities,...

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Section: Universal Grammarmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time for a sea-change in linguistics: Response to comments on ‘The Myth of Language Universals’

Levinson

Evans

2010

Lingua

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“…Efficient design concerns the nature of language -interaction with the interfaces, what language is used for -they are fundamental to the nature of language. 28 The efficient design hypothesis, which is often seen as a point of divergence between the generativist and the functionalist camp (though see Golumbia 2010), is then actually another potential point of convergence between the two. Now, one of the tenets of minimalism is that as much as possible, and as directly as possible, should follow from bare output conditions (see Chomsky 1995 on this notion), i.e.…”

Section: Efficient Design and The Nature Of Language Efficient Design...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Formalism and, not vs, Functionalism

Bošković¹

2022

Belgrade Linguistics Days (BeLiDa)

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Baker & McCloskey (2007) examine the relationship between traditional typology and generative theoretical syntax. Since then typology has started to play an increasingly more important role within the latter camp to the point that we can actually talk about generative typology. Given that traditional typology is generally associated with functional approaches (see e.g. Nichols 2007), this then gives us two approaches to typology, which I will refer to as traditional (TT) and generative typology (GT). 1 In a way, then, typology is setting grounds for a potential rapprochement of the functional and the formal approach to language more generally. This paper will provide a number of remarks to this effect, within a unificational view where both of these approaches have a place, i.e. where they are in principle not in competition with each other. 2

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Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space

Butler

Gonzálvez-García

2014

Studies in Language Companion Series

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This book, intended primarily for researchers and advanced students, expands greatly on previous work by the authors exploring the topography of the multidimensional “functional-cognitive space” within which functional, cognitive and/or constructionist approaches to language can be located. The analysis covers a broad range of 16 such approaches, with some additional references to Chomskyan minimalism, and is based on 58 questionnaire items, each rated by 29 experts on particular models for their importance in the model concerned. These ratings are analysed statistically to reveal overall patterns of (dis)similarity across models. The questionnaire ratings and experts’ comments are then used, together with the authors’ close reading of the literature, in detailed discussion leading to a final dichotomous rating for each feature in each model, the results again being analysed statistically. The final chapter presents the overall conclusions and suggests how existing collaborations between approaches could be strengthened, and new ones created, in future research. Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space has been awarded the 2016 prize of the Spanish Association for Applied Linguistics (Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada, AESLA) for work by experienced researchers.

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Minimalism is functionalism

Cited by 44 publications

References 23 publications

Time for a sea-change in linguistics: Response to comments on ‘The Myth of Language Universals’

Time for a sea-change in linguistics: Response to comments on ‘The Myth of Language Universals’

Formalism and, not vs, Functionalism

Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space

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