Models of language variation and change
Description of the project (from the Research Proposal written by Rita Manzini) - State of the art
In the research framework we adopt, language is a biologically defined object, including universal and innate components, both conceptual and computational.
The lexicon is a natural locus of variation and change, providing a double interface, between the conceptual system and syntactico-semantic computation on the one hand, and between syntax and externalization on the other hand.
The other major locus of variation is the interface itself, connecting syntactico-semantic computation to phonological computation, and involving presumably functional optimization processes.
Against this background of assumptions (Chomsky & Berwick 2015, Chomsky et al. 2018), several research questions prominently arise.
The most basic question is: which are the limitations that syntactico-semantic (and phonological) computation imposes on variation? In other words:
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What kinds of linguistic properties and relations are subject to variation and what is the admissible extent of this variation, given the constraints imposed by the Faculty of Language?
This question is investigated in the literature with the classical tools of formal linguistics. Thus certain domains of data are shown to be amenable to universal principles supplemented by a limited array of optional choices or parameters.
Additional theoretical hypotheses do not interfere with this basic research paradigm, be they cartography (of special relevance here Aboh 2015), the (Kaynian) Linear Correspondence Axiom (e.g. Sheehan et al. 2017), silent categories(Kayne 2010). Many works of the present unit fall into this tradition of studies in its various internal articulations.
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Is variation structured in turn?
namely (a) by the hierarchical ordering of the values of a given parameter or (b) by the interaction between different parameters and/or of their settings as for instance that a particular parameter or parameter value may influence another.
This question is of central importance to two ERC AdG of the last decade, the already quoted LanGeLin (PI G. Longobardi), and ReCoS, Rethinking Comparative Syntax (PI I. Roberts, Cambridge).
The approach adopted by ReCoS is to provide hierarchical schemas able to encode the best known extant parameters: the null subject parameter, the head-movement parameter, the (case) alignment parameter, the A’-movement parameter (Biberauer et al. 2010, 2014). The schemas are identically organized only at very general level; in the detail, each parametric template imposes its own organization. In other words, like all attempts at total ordering, parametric hierarchies contain an element of rigidity and lack of modularity – nor is it clear how the templates interact with one another.
The LanGeLin project has at its core the Parametric Comparison Method (PCM, Longobardi & Guardiano 2009), which uses a parameter set concerning the internal structure of the noun phrase to predict (under appropriate statistical measures) linguistic philogenetic trees. According to Longobardi (2017), parameters are based on parameters schemas such as “Is F, F a feature, grammaticalized?”, “Is F, F a grammaticalized feature, spread on X, X a category?”, “Does a functional category … X have a phonological matrix Φ?” – which may in principle interact with one another.
Manzini & Savoia (2011), Manzini (2015) take an even weaker approach, namely that “the parameters interacting with [Externalization] are … the categorical splits” for instance “speaker vs. hearer, 1st/2nd person vs. D” in the realm of nominal properties. Thus even parameters schemas are epiphenomena, the conceptual workspace and the categorial cuts (parameters) that are or are not externalized by the lexicon is all there is. Interactions between categorical cuts take the form“categorial split A is not defined for value 0/1 of … categorial split B”.
It seems evident to us that the various approaches quoted share a fundamental attempt to fully free parameters from their connections with earlier models of generative grammar to bring them to bear on current minimalist theorizing. It is one of the ambitions of this project to contribute to this effort by opening a forum where the different approaches can be measured against data they have not explicitly been devised to handle.
Finally, since we pursue our studies on the basis of evidence from contact, we briefly acknowledge the literature on bilingual competences and related phenomena of code mixing, code switching, both within functionalist and mentalist frameworks (e.g. Romaine 1995, MacSwan 1999, Muysken 2000). For us, contact is instrumental to the investigation into models of parametrization – but we are aware of both the descriptive generalizations and the analytical insights coming from the dedicated literature.
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