1 Cutting the theory down to size: an essay on eliminative Minimalism 1 Diego Gabriel Krivochen University of Reading, CINN diegokrivochen@hotmail.com 1. Abstract This paper is about intersecting planes. We will argue that “language”, not only as a formal entity but also as a biologically (and thus, physically) based system, is nothing more and nothing less than the intersection of three systems, each of which has independent existence and takes part in independent cognitive / computational processes. The systems we will consider are the well-known syntax, semantics and phonology, which we will analyze in a novel manner: rather than brought together by an undefined “rewiring” of the brain (Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch, 2002; Chomsky, 2005, among others), we will follow and hopefully advance recent research by claiming that “language” is better defined as the resolution between a fundamental tension that arises in the intersection between these systems: in our terms, unlimited capacity of discrete object manipulation and combination, and limited possibilities to materialize the symbolic structures thereby built due to the finiteness of the lexicon of any natural language NL at any derivational point D and the limitation of the computational power of the phonological channel to Markovian structures. In doing so, we will also critically analyze the concepts of UG and Faculty of Language, and their place in a strongly eliminative theory. Keywords: Minimalist Program; Biolinguistics; Nativism; meta-linguistics; Faculty of Language 2. Perfection and Innateness The term “biolinguistics” was coined, according to Chomsky (2005), by Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini in 1974, under the influence of Lennenberg’s (1967) Biological Foundations of Language. At that time, however, it was not clear whether we were in presence of a sub-branch of linguistics or a field on its own right. It was also not clear what its scope, aims and methodology were: one of the founding questions, very much alive today, was whether principles that appear unique to language are in fact shared by other cognitive domains, and if so, in which manner. This also led to ask to which extent we can find a principled explanation for emergent properties of language as a state of the speaker’s mind, ultimately, a “property of matter” in Darwin’s terms. This inquiry has led to the so-called “Minimalist Program”, in the methodological and substantive effort to simplify not only the theoretical apparatus (methodological minimalism) but also the extra- theoretical entities that are to be accounted for (ontological minimalism), including elements in representations and steps in derivations. Whether the enterprise has been successful is still to be discussed (and not just assumed), but there is a wider question in hand, which has been 1 This study was supported by the project Linguistic and lexicostatistic analysis in cooperation of linguistics, mathematics, biology and psychology, grant no. CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0161, which is financed by the European Social Fund and the National Budget of the Czech Republic.