Part of
The Limits of Syntactic VariationEdited by Theresa Biberauer
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 132] 2008
► pp. 483–515
Edited by Theresa Biberauer
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 132] 2008
► pp. 483–515
Parameter setting and input reduction
The language acquisition procedure identifies certain properties of the target
grammar before others. The evidence from the input is processed in a stepwise
order. Section 1 equates that order and its typical effects with an order of
parameter setting. The question is how the acquisition procedure derives the
order from input evidence. Section 2 proposes a systematic input reduction for
functional categories as the key; the reduction residue contains no more than
a single non-acquired functional category (F?) that is first seen as an optional
element only. If that functional category has turned into the most preferred
option, the input reduction shifts its acquisition focus to the next functional
category. Section 3 and 4 demonstrate how quantitative proportions within the
child’s input reduction determine the underlying order as SOV in Dutch before
the V-second shift for root sentences is derived. The child’s input reductions are
claimed to follow from ignorance rather than from any a priori information.
It is argued that parameters are formal properties of the grammatical system
that originate as cultural discoveries made by a reflexive mind rather than
being task-specific neural a prioris. Section 5 suggests that this view can be
extended to syntactic islands.
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Biberauer, Theresa
2019. Children always go beyond the input: The Maximise Minimal Means perspective. Theoretical Linguistics 45:3-4 ► pp. 211 ff. 
Biberauer, Theresa & Ian Roberts
2017. Parameter Setting. In The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Syntax, ► pp. 134 ff.
Kampen, Jacqueline van
2016. Deriving verb-cluster variation in Dutch and German. Linguistics in the Netherlands 33 ► pp. 54 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.
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