Abstract
As has been repeatedly pointed out in recent literature on language acquisition (cf. Trustcott and Wexler, 1989; Clahsen, 1990; and Roeper, 1990, among others), the main problem of the theory of parameter setting is the notorious ambiguity of the primary linguistic data with respect to the triggering evidence. The input the child is exposed to provides her with evidence for contradictory choice. So, for instance, left-branching V2 languages may have the object on the right side of the verb as well, languages with syntactic wh movement license wh-in-situ under certain conditions, etc. Thus, it seems, at first glance, as if there were no conclusive evidence in such cases for the child to determine the correct parametric values.
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Penner, Z. (1992). The Ban on Parameter Resetting, Default Mechanisms, and the Acquisition of V2 in Bernese Swiss German. In: Meisel, J.M. (eds) The Acquisition of Verb Placement. Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2803-2_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2803-2_9
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