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Este trabalho fornece um resumo geral de algumas das questões atuais no campo da Gramática Gerativa, o estudo da Faculdade da Linguagem humana. Revisamos algumas das ideias-chave que essa abordagem da linguagem propõe e desenvolve, concentrando-se nas propriedades básicas da linguagem e suas interações com outros sistemas. Também apontamos algumas das possibilidades que uma abordagem biológica da linguagem oferece para construir pontes entre a Linguística e outras disciplinas científicas. Ao longo do artigo, procuramos levar em consideração às vantagens que a incorporação de algumas dessas ideias teria para o Ensino Secundário - não apenas pelo valor potencialmente intrínseco do conhecimento linguístico, mas também pelo impacto dessa abordagem em habilidades mais gerais, como observar, descrever e comparar dados, formular generalizações ou oferecer argumentos empíricos. Tradução: Aniela Improta França e Marcus Maia

Este trabajo proporciona un resumen general de algunos de los problemas actuales en el campo de la Gramática Generativa, el estudio de la facultad humana del lenguaje. Revisamos algunas ideas clave que este enfoque del lenguaje ha propuesto y desarrollado, centrándonos en las propiedades básicas del lenguaje y sus interacciones con otros sistemas. También señalamos algunas de las posibilidades que un enfoque biológico del lenguaje ofrece para construir puentes entre la lingüística y otras disciplinas científicas. A lo largo de la discusión tenemos muy presentes las ventajas que tendría incorporar algunas de estas ideas en la Educación Secundaria, no solo por el potencial valor intrínseco del conocimiento lingüístico, sino también por el impacto de este enfoque en habilidades más generales (y competenciales) como son observar, describir y comparar datos, razonar, argumentar, contraargumentar, formular generalizaciones, analizar, sintetizar o inferir.

The goal of theory construction is explanation: for language, theory for particular languages (grammar) and for the faculty of language FoL (the innate endowment for language acquisition). A primitive notion of simplicity of grammars is number of symbols, but this is too crude. An improved measure distinguishes grammars that capture genuine properties of language from those that do not. The theory of FoL must meet the empirical conditions of learnability (under extreme poverty of stimulus), and evolvability (given the limited but not insignificant evidence available). Recent work provides promising insights into how these twin conditions may be satisfied.

20 years ago, in lectures in Brasilia, I suggested that we might someday discover that the Faculty of Language (FL) is “beautifully designed, a near-perfect solution to the conditions imposed by the general architecture of the mind-brain in which it is inserted, another illustration of how natural laws work out in wondrous ways,” so that language is rather like a snowflake, and the near-perfect design can be expected to impose inefficiency of use. I added that “these are fables,” with the redeeming value that they “might even turn out to have some elements of validity. In the years since, solid reasons have been found to suggest that these hopes were understated, and that the “fable” – the Strong Minimalist Thesis – appears to have considerable validity. A number of striking and puzzling properties of FL – “universals of language” in the contemporary sense – have been shown to derive from the simplest computational operation, Merge, along with conditions of computational efficiency that are in effect part of natural law. And as anticipated, they do indeed impose communicative inefficiency.

This is an annotated transcription of Noam Chomsky’s keynote presentation at the University of Reading, in May 2017. Here, Chomsky reviews some foundational aspects of the theory of structure building: essentially, Merge and Label. The aim is to eliminate what he refers to as extensions of Merge which are seemingly incompatible with the Strong Minimalist Thesis while still accounting for recursive structure, displacement, and reconstruction (as the main empirical goals of the Minimalist Program). These include sidewards movement, multi-dominance, and late- Merge; all of which have been developed throughout the life cycle of transformational generative grammar. Furthermore, Chomsky formulates a series of conditions that an adequate formulation of Merge must meet, and sketches how the aforementioned extensions may violate these conditions. Chomsky arrives at a formulation of an operation MERGE, which maintains the core properties of Merge but is further restricted by limitations over what MERGE can do to the workspaces where syntactic operations apply.

This paper provides an overview of what we take to be the key current issues in the field of Generative Grammar, the study of the human Faculty of Language. We discuss some of the insights this approach to language has produced, including substantial achievements in the understanding of basic properties of language and its interactions with interfacing systems. This progress in turn gives rise to new research questions, many of which could not even be coherently formulated until recently. We highlight some of the most pressing outstanding challenges, in the hope of inspiring future research.

In their Essay on the evolution of human language, Martins and Boeckx seek to refute what they call the "half-Merge fallacy"-the conclusion that the most elementary computational operation for human language syntax, binary set formation, or "Merge," evolved in a single step. We show that their argument collapses. It is based on a serious misunderstanding of binary set formation as well as formal language theory. Furthermore, their specific evolutionary scenario counterproposal for a "two-step" evolution of Merge does not work. Although we agree with their Essay on several points, including that there must have been many steps in the evolution of human language and the importance of understanding how language and language syntax are implemented in the brain, we disagree that there is any justification, empirical or conceptual, for the decomposition of binary set formation into separate steps.

Es difícil considerar sin importantes reservas una petición de predicciones para el actual siglo iniciado. El historial de las predicciones sobre los asuntos humanos no ha sido alentador, ni siquiera a corto plazo, o en lo que se refiere a las ciencias. Con la excepción de unas pocas áreas, nuestra comprensión es superficial, y algunos factores cruciales (como la voluntad humana) están fuera de nuestro alcance. Quizá la predicción más plausible sea que cualquier propósito sobre cuestiones importantes probablemente errará, y si acierta, será por casualidad.

This article reviews, and rethinks, a few leading themes of the biolinguistic program since its inception in the early 1950s, at each stage influenced by developments in the biological sciences. The following also discusses how the questions now entering the research agenda develop in a natural way from some of the earliest concerns of these inquiries.

Language is not the same as speech or communication; rather, it is a computational cognitive system. It has appeared very recently, consistent with a minimalist view of language's hierarchical syntactic structure.

This is an interview to Noam Chomsky (MIT) on linguistic variation.

Cuenta como se creó la primera agencia estatal de propaganda en EU. llamada Comisión Creel, cuyo objetivo fue crear una histeria nacionalista en favor de la guerra. Alemania perdió la Primera Guerra Mundial porque perdió la batalla de la propaganda, acota. Luego relata la creación de las Relaciones Públicas vinculadas a la Creel. Uno de sus éxitos a finales de los 20 fue conseguir que las mujeres fumasen Chesterfiel. La manufactura del consenso fue un nuevo arte en democracia.

The evolution of the faculty of language largely remains an enigma. In this essay, we ask why. Language's evolutionary analysis is complicated because it has no equivalent in any nonhuman species. There is also no consensus regarding the essential nature of the language "phenotype." According to the "Strong Minimalist Thesis," the key distinguishing feature of language (and what evolutionary theory must explain) is hierarchical syntactic structure. The faculty of language is likely to have emerged quite recently in evolutionary terms, some 70,000-100,000 years ago, and does not seem to have undergone modification since then, though individual languages do of course change over time, operating within this basic framework. The recent emergence of language and its stability are both consistent with the Strong Minimalist Thesis, which has at its core a single repeatable operation that takes exactly two syntactic elements a and b and assembles them to form the set {a, b}.

Colombia recibe más ayuda militar de Estados Unidos que el resto de América Latina y el Caribe unidos, y esta situación puede profundizarse con la ejecución del Plan Colombia, fundamentado en la lucha antidrogas. Sin embargo, el pais ha sido calificado con el récord en violación de derechos humanos. En este contexto se aplica la reforma económica más significativa en la década de los noventa, generando condicionantes en los procesos de integración con sus vecinos. En concordancia con el secretario de Defensa, Henry Stimson, desde los años 60 Estados Unidos estaba autorizado para controlar su propio sistema regional, mientras todos los demás intenlos serian desmantelados. La presentación ambigua de esta política del gobierno estadounidense en Colombia es cómo disociar esta guerra contra la droga y la lucha irregular contrainsurgente En Estados Unidos hay otra opinión que debe conocerse para comprender las divergencias en e! interior de dicho país. Este artículo del prestigioso profesor universitario del MU, Noam Chomsky, es un referente obligado en términos de opinión pública y académica de dimensión internacional, por el inmenso respeto que infunde tanto en América como en Europa

Chomsky distingue dos problemas cognitivos y sociales basicos a los que denomina enigma de Platon y enigma de Orwell. Ambos caracterizan el debate teorico y del pensamiento de nuestro siglo, pero tienen ademas una larga raigambre en la historia y en el pensamiento humanos. A traves de ellos podemos revisar problemas y circunstancias que son claves a la hora de afrontar el siglo que viene.

Review: Marcello Barbieri, The organic Codes