Resumen de Semantocentric Minimalist Grammar
It is common to interpret minimalist “syntax” as “generative,” since it yields “instructions” for the C-I systems, and “semantics” as “interpretive,” but that view is basically incompatible with Chomsky’s internalist approach, where the syntax of meaning is as generative as that of form. This work discusses this usually overlooked matter, evaluates its meta-theoretical implications, and sketches a semantocentric interpretation of MG as, not only strictly faithful to internalism, but more realistic from a processing viewpoint, easier to reconcile with cognitive and functionalist alternatives to MG, and closer to common sense. Although the paper is deliberately programmatic, it offers concise but explicit alternative views of all major components of MG, in particular: a reduction of semantic entities and relations to types and predicate-argument structure, an explicit statement on lexical selection, a careful inventory of lexical information, a more natural concept of (un)interpretability, a theory of structurebuilding as Satisfaction that is superior to Merge and explains c-command, a more efficient unification-based theory of “displacement” as category-split that avoids type clashes, a principle of Transparency that nicely explains binary branching, and a re-evaluation of the role of Economy throughout, with potential consequences for semantics, lexical access, structure-building, displacement, phonological structure, ellipsis, and anaphora.
