22.3814, Disc: Inclusiveness Condition

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LINGUIST List: Vol-22-3814. Fri Sep 30 2011. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 22.3814, Disc: Inclusiveness Condition

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1)
Date: 27-Sep-2011
From: David Schueler [daschuel at umn.edu]
Subject: Inclusiveness Condition
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:56:15
From: David Schueler [daschuel at umn.edu]
Subject: Inclusiveness Condition

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I was wondering if anyone could help me understand why the 
Inclusiveness Condition, as defined in Chomsky 1995 and other work 
in the Minimalist Program, is so widely assumed as a working 
hypothesis.

In most formulations, it says that in a language with optimal design, the 
computational system will not add information in the course of the 
derivation which is not already present in the lexical items.

My question is: why? I don't see what's so imperfect about a 
computational system which adds information.

This is a separate question from whether languages in fact have this 
property, since as Chomsky says many times, languages probably are 
not optimally designed after all; the SMT is probably false.

But my question is, why would satisfying Inclusiveness be a criterion for 
being optimal in the first place? 


Linguistic Field(s): Linguistic Theories
                     Syntax







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