ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the puzzle that has been revealed by recent work in language acquisition. Minimal Projection requires that extended projections are always as small as possible. A clause always has the minimal structure consistent with its well-formedness–it must be a well-formed extended projection and it must meet all other relevant requirements, and it must do so in the minimal way. There must be a Specifier position for it to move to, therefore there must be a projection to house the Specifier. Minimal Projection will therefore license a projection when a negative preposes, a projection that would otherwise be unmotivated and would violate the principle. Verbal clause, INFL Phrase, and complement phrase clause structures are in principle available at all times for learners, but their deployment is governed by Minimal Projection. In combination with Obligatory Heads, Minimal Projection provides an alternative explanation for a pattern found by K. Boser et al.
