Editing Minimalist program (section)

=== Goals and assumptions ===
Minimalism is an approach developed with the goal of understanding the nature of language. It models a speaker's knowledge of language as a computational system with one basic operation, namely Merge. Merge combines expressions taken from the lexicon in a successive fashion to generate representations that characterize [[I-Language]], understood to be the internalized intensional knowledge state as represented in individual speakers. By hypothesis, I-language—also called [[universal grammar]]—corresponds to the initial state of the human language faculty in individual human development.

Minimalism is reductive in that it aims to identify which aspects of human language—as well the computational system that underlies it—are conceptually necessary. This is sometimes framed as questions relating to '''perfect design''' (Is the design of human language perfect?) and '''optimal [[computation]]''' (Is the computational system for human language optimal?)<ref name=":13" /> According to Chomsky, a human natural language is not optimal when judged based on how it functions, since it often contains ambiguities, garden paths, etc. However, it may be optimal for interaction with the systems that are internal to the mind.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chomsky |first=Noam |editor-first1=Adriana |editor-first2=Luigi |editor-last1=Belletti |editor-last2=Rizzi |date=2002-10-10 |title=On Nature and Language |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511613876 |chapter=An interview on minimalism |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511613876|isbn=9780521815482 }}</ref>

Such questions are informed by a set of background assumptions, some of which date back to the earliest stages of generative grammar:<ref name=":8">{{Cite book|last1=Freidin|first1=Robert|url=http://oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199549368.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199549368-e-001|title=Some Roots of Minimalism in Generative Grammar|last2=Lasnik|first2=Howard|date=2011-03-03|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199549368.013.0001}}</ref>

# Language is a form of '''cognition'''. There is a [[Innateness hypothesis|language faculty]] (FL) that interacts with other [[Cognition|cognitive systems]]; this accounts for why humans acquire language.
# Language is a '''computational''' system. The language faculty consists of a computational system (C<sub>HL</sub>) whose initial state (S<sub>0</sub>) contains [[Invariant (mathematics)|invariant]] [[principles and parameters]].
# [[Language acquisition]] consists of '''acquiring a [[lexicon]]''' and '''fixing the [[parameter]] values''' of the target language.
# Language generates an '''[[Infinity|infinite]] set of expressions''' given as a sound-meaning pair (π, λ).
# Syntactic computation '''interfaces with phonology''': π corresponds to [[phonetic form]] (PF), the [[Interface (computing)|interface]] with the articulatory-perceptual (A-P) performance system, which includes articulatory [[speech production]] and acoustic [[speech perception]].
# Syntactic computation '''interfaces with semantics''': λ corresponds to [[Logical form (linguistics)|logical form]] (LF), the interface with the conceptual-intentional (C-I) performance system, which includes conceptual structure and intentionality.
# Syntactic computations are '''fully interpreted''' at the relevant interface: (π, λ) are interpreted at the PF and LF interfaces as instructions to the A-P and C-I performance systems.
# Some aspects of language are '''invariant'''. In particular, the computational system (i.e. syntax) and LF are invariant.
#Some aspects of language show '''variation'''. In particular, variation reduces to [[Ferdinand de Saussure|Saussurean]] arbitrariness, parameters and the mapping to PF.
#The theory of grammar meets the criterion of '''conceptual necessity'''; this is the Strong Minimalist Thesis introduced by Chomsky in (2001).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Chomsky|first=Noam|date=2001|title=Beyond explanatory adequacy|journal=MIT Working Papers in Linguistics|volume=20|pages=1–22}}</ref> Consequently, language is an optimal association of sound with meaning; the language faculty satisfies only the interface conditions imposed by the A-P and C-I performance systems; PF and LF are the only linguistic levels.