Part of
The Limits of Syntactic VariationEdited by Theresa Biberauer
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 132] 2008
► pp. 75–107
Edited by Theresa Biberauer
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 132] 2008
► pp. 75–107
Parametric versus functional explanations of syntactic universals
This paper compares the generative principles and parameters approach to explaining syntactic universals to the functional-typological approach and also discusses the intermediate approach of Optimality Theory. It identifies some fundamental differences between generative parametric explanations and functional explanations. Most importantly, generative explanations assume that cross-linguistic generalizations are due to the innate Universal Grammar, whereas functional explanations assume that language structure can be influenced by regularities of language use through language change. Despite these differences, both approaches to cross-linguistic similarities and differences seem to be guided by a similar vision: that the superficial structural diversity of languages can be reduced to a few basic patterns once one digs below the surface (macroparameters or holistic types). Unfortunately, the evidence for such reductionist constructs has never been very good, so more recently both generativists and functionalists have shifted their interests away from these ambitious goals. However, I argue that there is one type of cross-linguistic generalization for which there is very good empirical evidence: intra-domain universals relating to prominence scales, most of which are straightforwardly explained functionally in terms of processing difficulty.
Cited by
Cited by 73 other publications
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.
2018. Areal diffusion and the limits of grammaticalization. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 337 ff. 
Ansaldo, Umberto, Walter Bisang & Pui Yiu Szeto
2018. Grammaticalization in isolating languages and the notion of complexity. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 219 ff.
Arkadiev, Peter & Timur Maisak
2018. Grammaticalization in the North Caucasian languages. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 116 ff.
Balles, I.
2009. ROBERTS, I. G.: Diachronic Syntax.. Kratylos 54:1 ► pp. 40 ff.
Boeckx, Cedric, Evelina Leivada & Johan J. Bolhuis
2013. Entangled Parametric Hierarchies: Problems for an Overspecified Universal Grammar. PLoS ONE 8:9 ► pp. e72357 ff.
Clark, Thomas Hikaru, Clara Meister, Tiago Pimentel, Michael Hahn, Ryan Cotterell, Richard Futrell & Roger Levy
2023. A Cross-Linguistic Pressure for Uniform Information Density in Word Order. Transactions of the Association for Computational Linguistics 11 ► pp. 1048 ff.
Corbara, Erika
2014. Language economy and the pro-drop theory from a minimalist perspective. Bohemica Olomucensia 6:1 ► pp. 18 ff.
Coupe, Alexander R.
2018. Grammaticalization processes in the languages of South Asia. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 189 ff.
Culbertson, Jennifer
2012. Typological Universals as Reflections of Biased Learning: Evidence from Artificial Language Learning. Language and Linguistics Compass 6:5 ► pp. 310 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Overview. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 3 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Constructional change in Germanic. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 197 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Language Change, Variation, and Universals,
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Recapitulation and prospects. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 274 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. A′ constructions. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 166 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Grammatical functions. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 145 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Argument structure. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 111 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Constructional economy and analogy. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 242 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Learning, complexity, and competition. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 68 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Changes outside of the CCore. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 225 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Universals. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 41 ff.
Culicover, Peter W.
2021. Constructions. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. 16 ff.
Dahl, Östen
2018. Grammaticalization in the languages of Europe. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 79 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav
2019. In defence of morphomic analyses. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 51:1 ► pp. 31 ff.
Enger, Hans-Olav
2019. Thoughts on morphomes, on a Scandinavian background. In Morphological Variation [Studies in Language Companion Series, 207], ► pp. 159 ff.
Esseesy, Mohssen
2018. Typological features of grammaticalization in Semitic. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 35 ff.
Futrell, Richard & Michael Hahn
2022. Information Theory as a Bridge Between Language Function and Language Form. Frontiers in Communication 7
Goldberg, Adele & Laura Suttle
2010. Construction grammar. WIREs Cognitive Science 1:4 ► pp. 468 ff.
GOLDBERG, ADELE E.
2013. Explanation and Constructions: Response to Adger. Mind & Language 28:4 ► pp. 479 ff.
Goldberg, Adele E.
2016. Subtle Implicit Language Facts Emerge from the Functions of Constructions. Frontiers in Psychology 6
Grossman, Eitan & Stéphane Polis
2018. Swimming against the typological tide or paddling along with language change?. Journal of Historical Linguistics 8:3 ► pp. 388 ff.
Hahn, Michael, Dan Jurafsky & Richard Futrell
2020. Universals of word order reflect optimization of grammars for efficient communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117:5 ► pp. 2347 ff.
Hahn, Michael & Yang Xu
2022. Crosslinguistic word order variation reflects evolutionary pressures of dependency and information locality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119:24
Haig, Geoffrey
2018. Grammaticalization and inflectionalization in Iranian. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 57 ff.
Hammarström, Harald
2016. Linguistic diversity and language evolution. Journal of Language Evolution 1:1 ► pp. 19 ff.
Haspelmath, Martin
2009. The best-supported language universals refer to scalar patterns deriving from processing cost. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32:5 ► pp. 457 ff.
Haspelmath, Martin
2018. Revisiting the anasynthetic spiral. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 97 ff.
Heine, Bernd
2018. Grammaticalization in Africa. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 16 ff.
Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog
2009. The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis,
Hur, Esther
2020. Chapter 8. Verbal lexical frequency and DOM in heritage speakers of Spanish. In The Acquisition of Differential Object Marking [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 26], ► pp. 207 ff.
Hur, Esther
2020. Chapter 8. Verbal lexical frequency and DOM in heritage speakers of Spanish. In The Acquisition of Differential Object Marking [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 26], ► pp. 207 ff.
Johanson, Lars & Éva Á. Csató
2018. Grammaticalization in Turkic. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 146 ff.
Klamer, Marian
2018. Typology and grammaticalization in the Papuan languages of Timor, Alor, and Pantar. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 235 ff.
Kleineberg, Désirée
2023. Chapter 2. Collection nouns as a derivational category in Spanish. In Constructions in Spanish [Constructional Approaches to Language, 34], ► pp. 28 ff.
Liljegren, Henrik
2014. A survey of alignment features in the Greater Hindukush with special references to Indo-Aryan. In On Diversity and Complexity of Languages Spoken in Europe and North and Central Asia [Studies in Language Companion Series, 164], ► pp. 133 ff.
McWhorter, John H.
2018. Is grammaticalization in creoles different?. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 394 ff.
Mithun, Marianne
2018. Shaping typology through grammaticalization: North America. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 309 ff.
Morales-Front, Alfonso & Cristina Sanz
2021. Piecemeal crosslinguistic influence and multilingualism. Second Language Research 37:3 ► pp. 473 ff.
Moyse-Faurie, Claire
2018. Grammaticalization in Oceanic languages. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 282 ff.
Murawaki, Yugo
2019. Bayesian Learning of Latent Representations of Language Structures. Computational Linguistics 45:2 ► pp. 199 ff.
Mushin, Ilana
2018. Grammaticalization and typology in Australian Aboriginal languages. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 263 ff.
Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine
2018. Introduction. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 1 ff.
Heiko Narrog & Bernd Heine
2018. Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective,
Narrog, Heiko, Seongha Rhee & John Whitman
2018. Grammaticalization in Japanese and Korean. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 166 ff.
Orqueda, Verónica, Silvana Arriagada & Francisca Toro
2020. Spanish [auto +V+ se] constructions. Folia Linguistica 54:3 ► pp. 615 ff.
Orqueda, Verónica, Silvana Arriagada & Francisca Toro
2020. Spanish [auto +V+ se] constructions. Folia Linguistica 54:3 ► pp. 615 ff.
Park, Jeong Joon, Ronnel Boettcher, Andrew Zhao, Alex Mun, Kevin Yuh, Vibhor Kumar & Matilde Marcolli
2017. Prevalence and Recoverability of Syntactic Parameters in Sparse Distributed Memories. In Geometric Science of Information [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 10589], ► pp. 265 ff.
Port, Alexander, Iulia Gheorghita, Daniel Guth, John M. Clark, Crystal Liang, Shival Dasu & Matilde Marcolli
2018. Persistent Topology of Syntax. Mathematics in Computer Science 12:1 ► pp. 33 ff.
Reiner, Tabea
2021. Comparative concepts are not a different kind of thing. In Linguistic Categories, Language Description and Linguistic Typology [Typological Studies in Language, 132], ► pp. 211 ff.
Rothman, Jason, Fatih Bayram, Tanja Kupisch, Terje Lohndal & Marit Westergaard
2018. Generative Approaches to Second Language (L2) Acquisition and Advanced L2 Proficiency. In The Handbook of Advanced Proficiency in Second Language Acquisition, ► pp. 72 ff.
Sessarego, Sandro & Javier Gutiérrez-Rexach
2018. Chapter 4. Afro-Hispanic contact varieties at the syntax/pragmatics interface. In Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 340], ► pp. 85 ff.
Smith, Hiram L.
2018. Addressing questions of grammaticalization in creoles. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 372 ff.
Tachihara, Karina & Adele E. Goldberg
2019. Emergentism in neuroscience and beyond. Journal of Neurolinguistics 49 ► pp. 237 ff.
TAKAHASHI, HIDEMITSU
2019. <i>Cognitive Linguistics: SAGE Benchmarks in Language and </i><i>Linguistics </i>. ENGLISH LINGUISTICS 36:1 ► pp. 115 ff.
Yadav, Himanshu, Samar Husain & Richard Futrell
2021. Do dependency lengths explain constraints on crossing dependencies?. Linguistics Vanguard 7:s3
Yadav, Himanshu, Shubham Mittal & Samar Husain
2022. A Reappraisal of Dependency Length Minimization as a Linguistic Universal. Open Mind 6 ► pp. 147 ff.
Zariquiey, Roberto
2018. Diachronic stories of body-part nouns in some language families of South America. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. 350 ff.
[no author supplied]
2018. Preface. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. viii ff.
[no author supplied]
2018. Series preface. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. vii ff.
[no author supplied]
2018. List of abbreviations. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. ix ff.
[no author supplied]
2018. Copyright Page. In Grammaticalization from a Typological Perspective, ► pp. iv ff.
[no author supplied]
2021. Preface. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. xi ff.
[no author supplied]
2021. Copyright Page. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. iv ff.
[no author supplied]
2021. List of Abbreviations. In Language Change, Variation, and Universals, ► pp. xv ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 december 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.