David Adger

One of Noam Chomsky's earliest contributions is the idea that a theory of the unbounded construction of hierarchical structures should incorporate a computational system that generates the structures. This chapter focuses on the structure building system, what is sometimes called the computational system, as a source of explanation. In some sense it is the fundamental source of explanation in generative grammar, as it accounts for the central question of the unbounded hierarchical nature of the syntax of human language. The architecture of the computational system of early generative grammar involves a device that carries out elementary operations following a procedure that maps strings of symbols to strings of symbols in two passes (a phrase structure sub‐procedure and a transformational sub‐procedure).

Branigan & Pickering (B&P) present a case that linguistic theory should pay heed to the results of structural priming studies. I can agree with this wholeheartedly. Since the pioneering work of Bock (Reference Bock1986), structural priming has provided interesting evidence for the construction of linguistic representations as part of the process of sentence generation and understanding. B&P are somewhat ambivalent on the question of whether linguistic theory should pay heed only to structural priming (as seems implied in the abstract) or simply add it to the repertoire of methodologies for testing the predictions of theories. If simply an addition to the repertoire, again, I am in thorough agreement.

By the late 1980s, Government and Binding Theory - which was central to almost all research in generative grammar - threatened to become as large and as intricate as the language it described. To counter this, Noam Chomsky introduced a minimalist program with the aim of making explanations of language as simple and general as possible. It has since gained widespread acceptance, to the extent that the most recent first-year textbook in syntax is based on it. One of the areas subjected to this minimalist scrutiny has been phrase structure, the fundamental basis of grammar. This book focuses on the most controversial area of phrase structure, the notion of specifiera notion encompassing the traditional categories of subjects, possessors, determiners, auxiliaries, and adjuncts. It examines what place the notion has in the new theory and how the projection of specifiers is to be eliminated or extended. The contributors draw on empirical, theoretical research in cross-linguistic phenomena and first and second language acquisition. The substantial introductory chapter provides an up-to-date account of minimalist syntactic theory and a critical evaluation of the notion of specifier within it.

The core question behind this Frontiers research topic is whether explaining linguistic phenomena requires appeal to properties of human cognition that are specialized to language. We argue here that investigating this issue requires taking linguistic research results seriously, and evaluating these for domain-specificity. We present a particular empirical phenomenon, bound variable interpretations of pronouns dependent on a quantifier phrase, and argue for a particular theory of this empirical domain that is couched at a level of theoretical depth which allows its principles to be evaluated for domain-specialization. We argue that the relevant principles are specialized when they apply in the domain of language, even if analogs of them are plausibly at work elsewhere in cognition or the natural world more generally. So certain principles may be specialized to language, though not, ultimately, unique to it. Such specialization is underpinned by ultimately biological factors, hence part of UG.