Principles & parameters
Principles and parameters refers to a popular framework in generative linguistics. Principles and parameters was largely formulated by Noam Chomsky though many others have adopted the approach. The central idea of principles and parameters is that the syntactic knowledge of a person can be modelled with two formal mechanisms: - A finite set of fundamental principles that are common to all languages, e.g. that a sentence must always have a subject, even if it is not overtly pronounced.
- A finite set of parameters that determine syntactic variability amongst languages, e.g. a binary parameter that determines whether or not the subject of a sentence must be overtly pronounced.
According to this framework principles, being universal, do not need to be learned. This has led some linguists to suggest that the syntactic component of language acquisition can be characterized as determining the settings of the theorized finite set of parameters. This claim has been somewhat controversial due to its strong nativism. Nonetheless, it is a very popular approach amongst linguists, and today it is central to the theory of Universal Grammar.
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