This collection of previously unpublished papers explores the implications of Chomsky's "Minimalist" framework for the modularity of grammar, which simplifies the "modular" approach he took in his Government and Binding theory of grammar. According to this theory autonomous grammatical components (phonological, syntactic, morphological, and semantic) coexist and interact like building blocks, using a given set of principles at given levels of representation. Chomsky's assertions have sparked a great deal of theoretical debate, especially with regard to the nature and interaction of each of the building blocks. The contributors to this volume join the debate in a series of case studies that compare modularity in English, French, and Italian, among other languages. In the process they address such issues as the autonomy and applications of modules and their distribution in theory, as well as the role of functional projects in their derivations. Projections and Interface Conditions will interest researchers in any of the above mentioned languages, as well as the large number of linguists working in the Chomskyan tradition.

Anna-Maria Di Sciullo's profile page

Anna-Maria Di Sciullo is at University of Quebec at Montreal.

"It offers a coherent view of the implications of the Minimalist Program for the theory and praxis of modularity.... The different contributions in Di Sciullo's book are a clear sign that the Minimalist Program has shed its former air of provisionality and is now heading confidently in what to all appearances is the right direction. Reinterpreted along the lines of the Minimalist Program, the concept of modularity of grammar is yielding results on the faculty of language that are every bit as exciting as those it produced in the early 1980's." --Canadian Journal of Linguistics