Minimalist Theory of Simplest Merge

Samuel D. Epstein is Marilyn J. Shatz Collegiate Professor of Linguistics, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Founding Director of the Weinberg Institute for Cognitive Science at the University of Michigan. He has a special interest in developing an explanatory theory of human (bio-)linguistic cognition and methodological issues more broadly in generative, mentalist explanation, and cognitive science. He is the author of numerous books and articles.Hisatsugu Kitahara is Professor at the Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, Keio University, Japan. His expertise is in theoretical linguistics, addressing fundamental issues regarding the nature of phrase structure. He has published Elementary Operations and Optimal Derivations (1997) and two co-authored books: A Derivational Approach to Syntactic Relations (1998) and Explorations in Maximizing Syntactic Minimization (2015). T. Daniel Seely is Professor of Linguistics at Eastern Michigan University. His research is focused on bio-linguistic theory, specifically on language as an "organ" of the human brain. His work in syntax has appeared in Linguistic Inquiry and Syntax; he’s co-author of a number of books with Samuel D. Epstein, and a co-author of a previous Routledge Leading Linguists volume with Epstein and Hisatsugu Kitahara. He is the recipient of multiple teachings awards and honors.

• AcknowledgmentsPreface, in Memoriam by Noam ChomskyIntroduction1. From Aspects' "daughterless mothers2 (aka delta nodes) to POP’s "motherless" sets (aka non-projection): a selective history of the evolution of Simplest Merge 2. Phase cancellation by external pair-merge of heads 3.A labeling analysis of selection in structured coordination 4. Is the faculty of language a "perfect solution" to the interface systems? 5. Merge, labeling, and their interactions6. Is linguistic variation entirely linguistic?7. A simpler solution to two problems revealed about the composite-operation Agree8. Some concepts and consequences of 3rd factor-compliant simplest MERGE 9. Unifying labeling under minimal search in "single-" and "multiple-specifier" configurations