This most recent exposition of Chomsky's ideas about the language faculty strives to
reach a deeper level of explanatory adequacy. Rather than the question of “What does
knowledge of language consist of?” Chomsky asks the question “Why is the
language faculty the way it is?” His basic answer to this question is the following: Two
sorts of conditions are imposed on the language faculty, conditions arising from its place in the
cognitive architecture “bare output conditions” and conditions of conceptual
naturalness such as economy, simplicity, and nonredundancy. Minimalism is thus a call for
theoretical simplicity with respect to the constructs used to explain language phenomena:
“It is all too easy to succumb to the temptation to offer purported explanation for some
phenomenon on the basis of assumptions that are roughly of the order of complexity of what is to
be explained. . . . Minimalist demands at least have the merit of highlighting such moves, thus
sharpening the question of whether we have a genuine explanation or a restatement of the
problem in other terms” (pp. 234–235).