This most recent exposition of Chomsky's ideas about the language faculty strives toreach a deeper level of explanatory adequacy. Rather than the question of “What doesknowledge of language consist of?” Chomsky asks the question “Why is thelanguage faculty the way it is?” His basic answer to this question is the following: Twosorts of conditions are imposed on the language faculty, conditions arising from its place in thecognitive architecture “bare output conditions” and conditions of conceptualnaturalness such as economy, simplicity, and nonredundancy. Minimalism is thus a call fortheoretical 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 somephenomenon on the basis of assumptions that are roughly of the order of complexity of what is tobe explained. . . . Minimalist demands at least have the merit of highlighting such moves, thussharpening the question of whether we have a genuine explanation or a restatement of theproblem in other terms” (pp. 234–235).