On economizing the theory of A-bar dependencies - DSpace@MIT
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A MIT linguistics PhD thesis digs into Chomsky's minimalist program, asking whether the grammar of long-distance dependencies can be reduced to a single economy principle.
Minimalist ProgramEconomy of DerivationA-bar MovementGenerative Grammar
Theory Briefing
- The thesis, supervised by Noam Chomsky at MIT, targets A-bar dependencies — grammatical links like wh-movement that cross clause boundaries.
- It applies the Minimalist Program's economy conditions, asking whether fewer, leaner principles can replace a bloated rule-set.
- The core theoretical bet: if syntax is optimal by nature, long-distance movement should follow from one overarching economy constraint rather than many stipulations.