Attrition in acquisition with principles and parameters

This article addresses the syntax of the notorious tough(-movement) construction (TC) in English. TCs exhibit a range of apparently contradictory empirical properties suggesting that their derivation involves the application of both A-movement and Ā-movement operations. Within previous principles-and-parameters models, TCs have remained “unexplained and in principle unexplainable” (Holmberg 2000:839) because of incompatibility with constraints on θ-role assignment, locality, and Case. This article argues that the phase-based implementation of the Minimalist Program (Chomsky 2000, 2001, 2004) permits a reanalysis of null wh-operators capable of circumventing the previous theoretical difficulties. Essentially, tough-movement consists of A-moving a constituent out of a “complex” null operator that has already undergone Ā-movement, a “smuggling” construction in the terms proposed by Collins (2005a,b).

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The Recovery of Case

Inference: International Review of Science ◽

10.37282/991819.16.24 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 2 (3) ◽

Author(s):

David Berlinski ◽

Juan Uriagereka

Keyword(s):

Universal Grammar ◽

Noam Chomsky ◽

Principles And Parameters

Jean-Roger Vergnaud’s famous 1977 letter to Noam Chomsky and Howard Lasnik assumed that case is obligatory. As Juan Uriagereka and David Berlinski argue, Vergnaud’s case filter was a vindication of the principles and parameters approach to language. Case is an aspect of Universal Grammar itself.

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Principles and Parameters/Minimalism

The Routledge Handbook of Syntax ◽

10.4324/9781315796604-37 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 527-543

Keyword(s):

Principles And Parameters

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The Theory of Principles and Parameters

The Minimalist Program ◽

10.7551/mitpress/10174.003.0003 ◽

2014 ◽

Keyword(s):

Principles And Parameters

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Introduction

Parameter Hierarchies and Universal Grammar ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198804635.003.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

Ian Roberts

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Language Design ◽

Emergent Properties ◽

Universal Principle ◽

Theoretical Context ◽

Classic Case ◽

Word Order Variation ◽

Minimalist Approach ◽

Order Variation ◽

Principles And Parameters

This chapter sets the work in its general theoretical context, introducing the central ideas to be developed in the following chapters—parameter hierarchies, and parameters as emergent properties of the three factors of language design—and briefly illustrates the way in which the principles-and-parameters idea can be maintained in current minimalist syntax by showing how the Final-Over-Final Condition (FOFC), taken to be a universal ‘principle’, interacts with and constrains cross-linguistic word-order variation (parameters). Whilst this is a classic case of ‘principle’ and ‘parameter’ interaction, both the principle and the parameter must derive from more elementary notions. In this way, we move towards a minimalist approach to principles and parameters, and to morphosyntactic variation in general. The Introduction ends with a brief summary of the topics of the chapters to follow.

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Principles and Parameters Syntax

Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition ◽

10.1007/978-1-349-22853-9_8 ◽

1993 ◽

pp. 156-199

Author(s):

Vivian Cook

Keyword(s):

Principles And Parameters

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Die Theorie der Prinzipien und Parameter The Theory of Principles and Parameters

Syntax ◽

10.1515/9783110095869.1.9.506 ◽

1993 ◽

Keyword(s):

Principles And Parameters

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Passives and Syntax

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.194 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Artemis Alexiadou

Keyword(s):

Linguistic Differences ◽

The Core ◽

Adjectival Passives ◽

Principles And Parameters

Cross-linguistic differences in passive formation and the differences between verbal and adjectival passives reveal some of the core properties of the passive. In earlier stages of the Principles and Parameters framework, differences in both these domains were taken as evidence that the grammar has two distinct components to build passives, namely the lexicon and the syntax. This intuition can be restated by adopting the view that all passive formation is syntactic. Indeed, it has been posited that there are two syntactic domains to build passives, and these two domains correlate with distinct properties of passive formations within a language and across languages.

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Backward Control

Linguistic Inquiry ◽

10.1162/002438902317406713 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 245-282 ◽

Cited By ~ 61

Author(s):

Maria Polinsky ◽

Eric Potsdam

Keyword(s):

Backward Control ◽

Principles And Parameters

This article documents and analyzes a pattern of backward subject control in the Nakh-Daghestanian language Tsez. In backward control two subject arguments are coindexed but it is the higher subject that is unpronounced: δitried [Johni to leave]. The principles-and-parameters framework (Chomsky and Lasnik 1993) explicitly rules out backward control. In contrast, recent minimalist analyses of control (e.g., Hornstein 1999) permit backward control because they allow movement from one thematic position to another. Backward control results if this movement takes place covertly. We argue that the phenomenon thus provides interesting evidence for the reduction of control to movement.

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