A program for the Minimalist Program
Norbert Hornstein, William J. Idsardi · Language faculty and beyond · 2014
The paper reviews current understandings of the Minimalist enterprise and defends one version thereof. Our main departure from the norm involves substituting ‘cognitive generality’ (viz. non-linguistic-parochialism) for ‘computational efficiency’ as a minimalist regulative ideal. We argue that the former is important to realize minimalist ambitions. The latter, though welcome, is less vital.