• Lingua Humanitatis
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• v.7
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• pp.57-92
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• 2005

The main driving force behind Chomskyan theory of language that is gaining ground under the title of the "minimalist program" has been the urge to reduce the variety of natural languages to a minimal number of theoretical concepts and devices and to formulate the strongest possible hypothesis about linguistic structures. This has led to a long series of proposals of ever greater abstractness, with concomitant modifications in a number of theoretical constructs. The minimalist approach is the latest development of these constant changes, for which there is really "only one computational system and one lexicon," the differences among languages being reducible to parametric variation in "nonsubstantive parts of the lexicon"(Chomaky 1995:169-70). Chomsky thus differs, now more than ever, from other linguists by his sweepingly programmatic, rather than empirical, approach to language. The proposals he makes are too complicated to discuss here in any technical details. We rather focus on a series of lectures delivered by an ardent adherent of the minimalist program, with the view to demonstrating how this theory may mislead and distort the whole prospect of linguistic investigation. The rationale of the so-called 'minimalism' per se will be called into question.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1-23
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• 2004

This article reports a bi-directional interlanguage study designed to investigate the initial state of L2 acquisition with regard to English and Korean wh-questions. Based on the UG system in line with the minimalist theory, it was hypothesized that the L2 initial state is characterized by the most economical form of syntax in which no overt wh-movement to Spec-CP is assumed. Results of the early interlanguage study showed that 1) L1 Korean learners of L2 English predominantly produced wh-questions with the fronted wh-word, but without productive wh-movement to the Spec-CP position; and 2) L1 English learners of L2 Korean overwhelmingly produced wh-questions with the wh-word remaining in-situ. These results were interpreted as supporting the minimalist account of the L2 initial grammar in that no overt syntactic wh-movement were adopted in early interlanguages of both English and Korean regardless of the learner's L1.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.33-60
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• 2004

This study was an attempt to present an appropriate way of interpreting L2 learners' linguistic behavior within Universal Grammar (UG) framework. Based on the Korean EFL adult learners' performance on the Subjacency violation sentences, the study suggested that the EFL learners are able to acquire subtle knowledge of target grammar and their linguistic behavior should be interpreted with the most recent version of UG theory, the Minimalist Program (MP) notion. The MP notion seems more plausible to accommodate incomplete L2 grammar while acknowledging UG-constrained interlanguage which the previous version, Principles and Parameters (P&P) approach, could not explain very well. The study observed no age-effects among the Korean EFL learners in their linguistic competence measured by the performance on the UG-constraint violation sentences. Having suggested that the MP notion can be a more reasonable tool to explain the EFL learners' linguistic behavior, the study introduced comprehensive hypotheses such as Constructionist Model (CM) and the Ontogeny Phylogeny Model (OPM).

• Proceedings of the KSPS conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.117-122
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• 1996

This paper proposes a derivational account of tensing and neutralization of obstruents in Korean within the theory of Government Phonology (GP) (Kaye, Lowenstamm and Vergnaud 1990, henceforth KLV; Park 1996). We begin by outling the relevant tensing and neutralization data in Korean. We point out several problems that need to be addressed in any account of these data. We then set out the central notions of GP, pointing out how adherence to the requirement that government relations remain constant throughout a derivation under the Projection Principle prevents a GP account of tensing and neutralization in Korean, which requires government relations to switch between lexical and phonetic representations. To address this problem, we propose abandoning the Projection Principle, extending lexical representations in GP along the lines of the Markedness Theory approach (Michaels 1989), and adopting the economy principles for derivation of the Minimalist approach (Chomsky 1993; Chomsky & Lasnik 1991). finally, we summarize the analysis of obstruent phenomena in Korean within GP extended in these ways.

• International Journal of Contents
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.49-57
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• 2016

This paper aims to explore instructional design of a cyber classroom for secondary students' basic English language competence. A paucity of support for low or under achieving students' English learning exists particularly at the secondary level. In order to bridge the gap, there has been demand for online educational resources considered to be an effective tool in improving students' self-directed learning and motivation. This study employs a comprehensive approach to instructional design for the asynchronous cyber classroom with the underlying premise that different learning theories can be applied in a complementary manner to serve different pedagogical purposes best. Gagné's conditions of learning theory, Bruner's constructivist theory, Carroll's minimalist theory, and Vygotsky's social cognitive development theory serve as the basis for designing instruction and selecting appropriate media. The ADDIE model is used to develop online teaching and learning materials. Twenty-five key grammatical features were selected through the analysis of the national curriculum of English, being grouped into five units. Each feature is covered in one cyber asynchronous class. An Integration Class is given at the end of every five classes for synthesis, where students can practice grammatical features in a communicative context. Related theories, pedagogical practices, and practical web-design strategies for cyber Basic English classes are discussed with suggestions for research, practice and policy to support self-directed learning through a cyber class.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.58-64
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• 2018

The Extraposition phenomenon in English has been analyzed mainly through two approaches: a derivational approach under the Principles & Parameters framework (P&P) and a representational approach under the early Minimalist framework (MP). The first one tries to understand the phenomenon as a result of the movement of a Big Subject first to the end of a sentence which is then followed by the insertion of an expletive 'it' to the empty Subject position. On the other hand, the second one tries to understand it by way of assuming a Big Subject originally base-generated at the end of a sentence which is followed by the insertion of an expletive 'it' to the empty Subject position. The two approaches, however, are not free from theoretical defects at all: the full derivational approach was under controversy in terms of (1) the failure of the Binding Theory and (2) its inability to suggest anything about the marginal reading issue. On the while, the representational approach has been argued (1) to violate the thematic hierarchy that should be kept in D-structure, and (2) to be also unable to suggest the slightest difference in marginal reading issue as the first one. In this paper I focus mainly on analyzing the 'It'-Extraposition phenomenon in the Optimality Theory. I will show that by way of (i) some newly developed constraints such as Subj., and AHSubj. and (ii) a constraint hierarchy of Subj.>>AHSubj., the controversies of 'It-Extraposition' such as (1) the analysis of construction and (2) the very closely related issue of 'marginal reading issue' can be explained properly.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.103-118
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• 2006

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of discourse topic and morpho-syntactic verbal information on the resolution of null pronouns in the Korean narrative text within the framework of the construction-integration theory (Kintsch, 1988, Singer & Kintsch, 2001, Graesser, Gernsbacher, & Goldman. 2003). For the purpose of this paper, two conditions were designed: an explicit condition with both a consistently maintained discourse topic and the person-specific verb modals on one hand, and a neutral condition with no discourse topic or morpho-syntactic information provided, on the other. We measured the reading tines far the target sentence containing a null pronoun and the question response times for finding an antecedent, and the accuracy rates for finding an antecedent. During the experiments each passage was presented at a tine on a computer-controlled display. Each new sentence was presented on the screen at the moment the participant pressed the button on the computer keyboard. Main findings indicate that processing is facilitated by macro-structure (topicality) in conjunction with micro-structure (morpho-syntax) in pronoun interpretation. It is speculated that global processing alone may not be able to determine which potential antecedent is to be focused unless aided by lexical information. It is argued that the results largely support the resonance-based model, but not the minimalist hypothesis.

• Language and Information
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 1999

The purpose of this paper is to expand Stowell (1993), Stowell (1995), Stowell (1996)'s syntactic analysis of tense in English. Stowell treats Tense as a dyadic predicate of temporal ordering which takes those two time-denoting phrases as its arguments. He further argues that those two morphemes 'resent' and 'past' are polarity-sensitive elements encoding an LF-scope relation with respect to true PAST tense. This paper proposes that English future 'will' should be treated as a true tense and that its future morpheme is an anti-PAST polarity item. It also provides a syntactic interpretation of a peculiar morphological aspect of English that it has no future form of the verb. To this end, Stowell's analysis is incorporated into the Minimalist program of Chomsky(1995). It is proposed that, unlike in other languages like French and Spanish, FUTURE in English is of an affix. This provides an intuitively correct description of why English verbs do not have a future form like other languages. The last but not least point which this paper will discuss is that Ogihara (1995a)'s claim that the referential theory of tensed sentences is inadequate is untenable.

• Journal of Multimedia Information System
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.317-322
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• 2019

The purpose of this study was to develop a self-management program for patients suffering from coronary artery disease (CAD), based on the self-determination theory and subsequently perform a heuristic evaluation by professionals and a quality assessment by users. The program consisted of 6 main menus and 20 submenus. Heuristic evaluation was conducted using eight principles, and as a result, a score of 1 was assigned by a professional for five principles: consistency and mapping, good ergonomics and minimalist design, flexibility and efficiency, anesthetics, and error management. Two professionals gave the principles of ease of input, screen readability, and glanceability a score of 1. In the quality assessment by the users, the system quality category had the highest score of 4.6 out of 5, and information quality had the lowest score of 3.87 out of 5. The overall average score was 4.08, which indicated the general satisfaction regarding the quality of the application. We have reflected on all the recommendations provided by the professionals based on their heuristic evaluation and incorporated them in the program.