Linear Compression as a Trigger for Movement 1

A new challenge has been addressed in generative grammar in a recent paper by Chomsky: “in principle … we can seek a level of explanation deeper than explanatory adequacy, asking not only what the properties of language are, but why they are that way” (Chomsky 2001: 2). More specifically, the idea within a biolinguistic approach is that the initial state of language acquisition is not fully genetically determined, ² but it is also a function of the general property of organic systems, and more generally it reflects the properties of the physical world.