On Universal Grammar, the Bioprogram Hypothesis and Creole Genesis An interview with Noam Chomsky Marlyse Baptista* University of Michigan 1. A prologue e original purpose of this interview was primarily to address theoretical is- sues that concern linguists who analyze creole languages within the generative framework. For instance, creolists whose work straddles the subfields of cre- olistics and generativism are oſten daunted by the question of whether there is a real and fundamental distinction between Chomsky’s Universal Grammar and Bickerton’s Bioprogram Hypothesis. Although the first full-fledged formulation of the Bioprogram Hypothesis occurred more than two decades ago, in Bickerton (1981, 1984), this hypothesis is still very much part of the discussion in creolistics, as attested in DeGraff (1999) and various chapters dedicated to this matter in the most recent Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Studies (2008). is interview offered therefore a platform to discuss this core topic while addressing a number of distinct but related issues such as the distinction between I-Language and E-Language, the difference between Chomsky’s poverty of stimu- lus and Bickerton’s linguistic chaos, theories of markedness, as well as paramet- ric settings in light of creole languages specifically. e two parameters that were targeted for discussion in this interview were the word order parameter and the pro-drop parameter for reasons to be laid out in Section 2. e original questions that were presented to Noam Chomsky for discussion are presented below: * I thank Noam Chomsky for taking the time to grant this interview and for sharing his thoughts on the issues at hand. I am also indebted to my students at the University of Georgia and at the University of Michigan for their valuable insight on many of the theoretical issues addressed in this interview. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 27:2 (2012), 351–376. doi 10.1075/jpcl.27.2.06bap issn 020–0 / e-issn 156–70 © John Benjamins Publishing Company