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.

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.

Understanding Minimalist Syntax introduces the logic of the minimalist program by analyzing well-known descriptive generalizations about long-distance dependencies, and asks why they should be true of natural languages. This text proposes a new theory of how long-distance dependencies are formed, with implications for theories of locality, and the minimalist program as a whole.

Derivation and Explanation in the Minimalist Program presents accessible, cutting edge research on an enduring and fundamental question confronting all linguistic inquiry  the respective roles of derivation and representation.