set. The set my I-language generates is determined by UG (including the Borer-
Chomsky hypothesis), third factor, and the particular inputs I received, which
were themselves determined by a host of factors including historical accident,
invasions, etc.
Within the Minimalist framework (as in biology more generally) humanly
possible I-language is the object of explanatory inquiry (by contrast, predicting
what forms happen to exist on earth today or in the past is a quite different
enterprise). If on track, the I-language internalized by the second author of this
chapter has Kilega-type derivations (Object agreement in tough-constructions,
not just Subject agreement), as well as having Kisongo Maasai-type derivations
(D to C, not just T to C) and other derivational types, too, all falling within
the constraints imposed on what can be a humanly possible I-language, as
determined by UG, the third factor and the infi nite class of possible externalized
inputs (including none) into such infi nitely and multiply constrained, linguistic,
biological, physical and computational mental organs.
Notes
∗ We are very grateful to Marlyse Baptista, Vicki Carstens, Noam Chomsky, Hisatsugu
Kitahara, Acrisio Pires and Daniel Seely for extremely valuable and helpful discus-
sion, suggestions and comments.
1 If Internal Merge involves probing, matching and Agree (thereby determining
the syntactic objects to be attracted) and therefore conforms to minimal search,
while External Merge does not, then we lose the unifi cation of Internal Merge
and External Merge, as proposed by Chomsky (2013).
2 The analysis presented here does not explain why D-to-C movement is allowed
only in the case of relative clauses modifying the subject, nor why the morpheme
ore always appears in the sentence initial position. See Carstens and Shoaff (2014)
for more detailed analysis.
References
Berwick, Robert, and Noam Chomsky. 2011. The biolinguistic program: The cur-
rent state of its development. I n A.-M. Di Sciullo and C. Boeckx (eds.). The
Biolinguistic enterprise: New perspectives on the evolution and nature of the human
language faculty. 19–41. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boeckx, Cedric. 2011. Approaching parameters from below. In C. Boeckx and A-M
Di Sciullo (eds.), The Bioling uistic enterprise: New perspectives on the evolution and
nature of the human language faculty. 205–221. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Borer, Hagit. 1984. Parametric syntax: Case studies in semitic and romance languages.
Dordrecht: Foris Public ations.
Carstens, Vicki. 2005. Agree and EPP in Bantu. Natural Language & Linguistic
Theory 23:219–279
Carstens, Vick i. 2008. Raising in Bantu. Unpublished manuscript, University of
Missouri, Columbia
Carstens, Vi cki, and Cassady Shoaff. 2014. D-to-C and VSO/SVO alternation in
Kisongo Maasai: Evidence from rel ative clauses. Unpublished manuscript, Uni-
versity of Missouri, Columbia.
Eliminating parameters from narrow syntax 137