Editing Minimalist program (section)

{{short description|Linguistic research program proposed by Noam Chomsky}}
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{{Linguistics}}In [[linguistics]], the '''minimalist program''' is a major line of inquiry that has been developing inside [[generative grammar]] since the early 1990s, starting with a 1993 paper by [[Noam Chomsky]].<ref>Chomsky, Noam. 1993. ''A minimalist program for linguistic theory''. MIT occasional papers in linguistics no. 1. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Distributed by MIT Working Papers in Linguistics.</ref>

Following [[Imre Lakatos]]'s distinction, Chomsky presents minimalism as a [[research program|program]], understood as a mode of inquiry that provides a conceptual framework which guides the development of linguistic theory. As such, it is characterized by a broad and diverse range of research directions. For Chomsky, there are two basic [[Minimalist grammar|minimalist]] questions—What is language? and Why does it have the properties it has?—but the answers to these two questions can be framed in any theory.<ref name=":13">Boeckx, Cedric ''Linguistic Minimalism. Origins, Concepts, Methods and Aims'', pp. 84 and 115.</ref>