The Minimalist Program consists of four recent essays that attempt to situate linguistic theory in the broader cognitive sciences. In these essays the minimalist approach to linguistic theory is formulated and progressively developed. Building on the theory of principles and parameters and, in particular, on principles of economy of derivation and representation, the minimalist framework takes Universal Grammar as providing a unique computational system, with derivations driven by morphological properties, to which the syntactic variation of languages is also restricted. Within this theoretical framework, linguistic expressions are generated by optimally efficient derivations that must satisfy the conditions that hold on interface levels, the only levels of linguistic representation. The interface levels provide instructions to two types of performance systems, articulatory-perceptual and conceptual- intentional. All syntactic conditions, then, express properties of these interface levels, reflecting the interpretive requirements of language and keeping to very restricted conceptual resources. The Essays Principles and Parameters Theory. Some Notes on Economy of Derivation and Representation. A Minimalist Program for Linguistic Theory. Categories and Transformations in a Minimalist Framework.

The poetry of the extremely prolific and versatile ‘Abbāsid poet Ibn al-Rūmī is examined in this book. Part 1, The Poet, reconstructs the poet’s life and times providing the background for Part II, The Poetry, which traces the influences in Ibn al-Rūmī’s distinctive poetic style and themes. This provides a glimpse into a rather fluid period in Arabic literary history when the boundary between poetry and prose was becoming increasingly permeable, due to the emergence of the so-called “secretary-poets,” and to the prevalence and importance of the munāżarah, or disputation. Part III, The Poem, analyzes the poet’s celebrated 282-line poem commemorating the quashing of the Zanj rebellion. The towering architectonics and sophisticated organization of this poem provide an ideal opportunity to explore Ibn al-Rūmī’s poetic contribution.

This pioneering book lays new foundations for the study of reference and truth. It seeks to explain the origins and characteristics of human ways of relating to the world by means of an understanding of the inherent structures of the mind. Wolfram Hinzen explores truth in the light of Noam Chomsky's Minimalist Program. Truth, he argues, is a function of the human mind and, in particular, likely presupposes the structure of the human clause.

Minimalist Syntax is a collection of essays that analyze major syntactic processes in a variety of languages, all unified by their perspective from within the Minimalist Program.

Linguistic Minimalism is the most ambitious presentation and defense of the minimalist program published to date. My overall assessment is that Boeckx has done an excellent job. I recommend Linguistic Minimalism to anyone with a good background in syntactic theory who wants to know what the minimalist program is all about. Cedric Boeckx has written a book that puts the program in the best possible light.