On the study of the language faculty: Results, developments, and perspectives.

The study of the language faculty pursued within the tradition of generative grammar focuses on a natural object, the cognitive capacity that our species possesses for knowledge, acquisition, and use of natural languages. This line of research investigates a component of the human mind/brain, and is pursued within the federating framework of the cognitive neurosciences. Three major steps of this research trend are examined here: the modeling of the language faculty as a computational capacity, the study of language invariance and variation through parametric models, and the guidelines of the Minimalist program. After a presentation of the logic of the parametric approach to language variation, some properties of the micro- versus macro-comparative study of syntax are examined. The basic guidelines of the Minimalist program are illustrated, with special reference to the role of economy principles; some consequences of minimalist ideas for general issues such as innateness and task-specificity of the language faculty are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]