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be answered. One question is: why isn't there only a single language? Why do languages vary at all? So suppose this mutation – the great leap forward – took place; why didn't it fix the language exactly? We don't know what the parameters are, but whatever they are, why is it these, and not those? So those questions have got to come up, but they are really at the edge of research. There's a conceivable answer in terms of optimal efficiency –efficiency of computation. That answer could be something like this, although no one's proposed it; it's really speculation. To the extent that biology yields a single language, that increases the genetic load: you have to have more genetic information to determine a single language than you do to allow for a variety of languages. So there's kind of a saving in having languages not be too minimal. On the other hand, it makes acquisition much harder: it's easier to acquire a minimal language. And it could be that there's a mathematical solution to this problem of simultaneous maximization: how can you optimize these two conflicting factors? It would be a nice problem; but you can't formulate it.
    And there are other speculations around; you've read Mark Baker's book ( Atoms of Language ), haven't you?
    JM: Yes, I have .
    NC: . . . well, there's this nice idea that parameters are there so we can deceive each other . . .
    JM: . . . and use that option in wartime.[C]
    NC: Of course, the understanding of what parameters are is too rudimentary to try to get a principled answer. But those questions are going to arise.
    Take phonology. It's generally assumed – plausibly, but not with any direct evidence – that the mapping from the narrow syntax to the semantic interface is uniform. There are lots of theories about it; but everyone's theory is that this is the way it works for every language – which is not unreasonable, since you have only very limited evidence for it. The narrow syntax looks uniform up to parameters. On the other hand, the mapping to the sound side varies all over the place. It is very complex; it doesn't seem to have any of the nice computational properties of the rest of the system. And the question is why. Well, again, there is a conceivable snowflake-style answer, namely, that whatever the phonology is, it's the optimal solution to a problem that came along somewhere in the evolution of language – how to externalize this internal system, and to externalize it through the sensory-motor apparatus. You had this internal system of thought that may have been there for thousands of years and somewhere along the line you externalize it; well, maybe the best way to do it is a mess. That would be the nicest answer, although it's a strange thought for me. And you can think of long-term questions like that all along the line.
    JM: Would optimization be required for the conceptual-intentional case?
    NC: That is really a puzzle. So, why do our conceptsalways have this invariant, curious property that they conform to our “cognoscitive powers” to use Ralph Cudworth's terminology, not to the nature of the world? It's really strange. And it seems to be completely independent. There are no sensible origins, selectional advantages, nothing . . .
    JM: You've often emphasized the importance ofpoverty of stimulus facts with respect to knowledge of all aspects of language – namely, structural, phonological-phonetic, and meaning-related conceptual ways. You have pointed out that the facts demand explanation, and that the theory of Universal Grammar is an hypothesis, perhaps the only viable one, that explains these particular facts. Could you speak to what – given the current understanding of UG and of computation in it – the innateness of these domains amounts to?
    NC: First of all, I should say – I see this now clearly in retrospect – that it was a tactical mistake to bring up the issue of the poverty of thestimulus. The reason is that it makes it look as if it's