• 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.

• 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).

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.9-16
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• 2017

In an English multiple Wh-construction with two wh-words, only a higher-located wh-word in a sentence structure is allowed to pre-pose to the Spec of CP, which has been known as a Superiority Effect(SE). Contrary to English, Korean and Japanese have been known not to respect SE, and this phenomenon has been called an Anti-Superiority Effect(ASE). Recent studies including Takita et al(2007) and Harada(2015) among others, however, have suggested exceptional cases to ASE in Japanese, and attempted to explain them through a feature checking mechanism within the Minimalist Program(MP) by Chomsky(1995, 1998). Such explanations of MP, which are based on the abstract feature checking system, have recently been considered just as a kind of technicalia and should be backed up with further empirical evidence. In this paper, I show that there are also exceptions to ASE in Korean, and the exceptional cases to ASE both in Korean and Japanese can be well explainable based on the empirical evidence of Korean/Japanese morpho-syntax.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.25-42
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• 2004

This paper explores some possible interpretations of subject/object in child language, pointing out some potential problems in recent works within the minimalist framework and suggesting different views on it. Particularly, we will focus on how to identify and/or license objects, since most of the studies relevant to this issue have accounted for subjects only. Discussing the results of the studies on child language data, we will show that previous syntactic explanations on subjects, which have seemed quite attractive and refined, may not hold when accounting for objects and various aspects and properties of arguments in those child languages. In doing so, we will suggest and support a performance-based account, a discourse-based account, and a markedness account.

• 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.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.49-66
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• 2003

This paper explores the language acquisition mechanism within a recent theoretical nativist framework that assumes some computational principles. We will review previous accounts of the logical problem of language acquisition, arguing that language acquisition is part of general cognitive mechanism or at least associated with maturation of cognitive skills. For a theoretical framework, we will adopt the minimalist program and its principles. To support our theoretical argument, we will introduce empirical evidence from ESL (English as a Second Language) and SLI (Specific Language Impairment) data. The two types of data will illustrate that there might be some relationship between the development of language skills and that of the cognitive skills.

• 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.

• Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.305-327
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• 2002

This paper is in line with the attempts to examine two assumptions implied about the role of Universal Grammar (UC) in nonnative language acquisition: Are the EFL learners at disadvantage in acquiring UC-driven knowledge? Are there critical period effects in EFL learning? Based on the research with the seven studies of ESL and EFL adult learners performance on the Subjacency violation sentences, the paper investigates the extent to which the EFL adult learners can attain UG-driven knowledge represented by the Subjacency Principle. It also makes comparison of the EFL learners level of access to UG with that of their counterparts, the ESL learners. The research findings suggests that the EFL environment doesn't prevent the learners from acquiring target grammar in UG domain. That is, the current paper strongly suggests that the EFL adult-learners be able to acquire UG-driven knowledge to a considerable extent, at least as high as the ESL adult learners can attain. For the interpretation of the research results of the seven studies, Constructionist Hypothesis (CH) supported by a Minimalist Program (MP) assumption is employed. CH seems more plausible to account not only for incomplete acquisition observed among the beginning and intermediate level learners but also for the native-like competence acquired by advanced level L2 learners.