Abstract
Within a parameterized theory of grammar such as that proposed within the Government/Binding Theory of Chomsky (1981), grammatical development is viewed as a process whereby the child ‘fixes’ the parameters of Universal Grammar (UG) at the values which are appropriate for the particular adult language he is to acquire. The parameters of UG provide the child with a limited number of grammatical options; these options express the narrow range of variation which adult languages exhibit with respect to some aspect of grammar. Of course, in addition to fixing the parameters of UG, the child must also acquire the idiosyncratic or peripheral aspects of his language, which may be unrelated or only loosely connected to the parameters. However, it is assumed that once the child has set all the parameters, he will have acquired the ‘core’ component of the adult grammatical system.
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Hyams, N. (1989). The Null Subject Parameter in Language Acquisition. In: Jaeggli, O.A., Safir, K.J. (eds) The Null Subject Parameter. Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2540-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2540-3_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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