Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:22:01.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Universal Grammar

from Part III - Principles and Constraints

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2017

Adam Ledgeway
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Ian Roberts
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ambridge, B., Pine, J. M. and Lieven, E. 2014. ‘Child language acquisition: Why universal grammar doesn’t help’, Language (Perspectives) 90: 5390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, M. 1988. Incorporation: a theory of function changing. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Baker, M. 1996. The polysynthesis parameter. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, M. 2003. Lexical categories: Verbs, nouns and adjectives. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, M. 2008. The macroparameter in a microparametric world. In Biberauer, T. (ed.), The limits of syntactic variation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 351–74.Google Scholar
Berwick, R. and Chomsky, N. 2011. ‘The biolinguistic program: The current state of its development’, in Di Sciullo, A. M. and Boeckx, C. (eds.), The biolinguistic enterprise: New perspectives on the evolution and nature of the human language faculty. Oxford University Press, pp. 1941.Google Scholar
Berwick, R. C., Pietroski, P., Yankama, B. and Chomsky, N. 2011. ‘Poverty of the stimulus revisited’, Cognitive Science 35: 1207–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Berwick, R. C. and Weinberg, A. 1984. The grammatical basis of linguistics performance: Language use and acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Bradford Books/MIT Press.Google Scholar
Biberauer, T., Holmberg, A., Roberts, I. and Sheehan, M. 2014. ‘Complexity in comparative syntax: The view from modern parametric theory’, in Newmeyer, F. and Preston, L. (eds.), Measuring grammatical complexity. Oxford University Press, pp. 103–27.Google Scholar
Biberauer, T. and Richards, M. 2006. ‘True optionality: When the grammar doesn’t mind’, in Boeckx, C. (ed.), Minimalist theorizing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 3567.Google Scholar
Boeckx, C. 2011. ‘Approaching parameters from below’, in Di Sciullo, A. M. and Boeckx, C. (eds.), The biolinguistic enterprise: New perspectives on the evolution and nature of the human language faculty. Oxford University Press, pp. 205–21.Google Scholar
Borer, H. 1984. Parametric syntax: Case studies in Semitic and Romance languages. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bresnan, J. 2000. ‘Optimal syntax’, in Dekkers, J., van der Leeuw, F. and van de Weijer, J. (eds.), Optimality Theory: Phonology, syntax and acquisition. Oxford University Press, pp. 334–85.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. 2001. Lexical-Functional syntax. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bresnan, J. and Aissen, J. 2002. ’Optimality and functionality: Objections and refutations’, Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 20(1): 8195.Google Scholar
Burton-Roberts, N. 2011. ‘On the grounding of syntax and the role of phonology in human cognition’, Lingua 121: 2089–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burton-Roberts, N. and Poole, G. 2006. ‘Virtual conceptual necessity, feature dissociation and the Saussurean legacy in generative grammar’, Journal of Linguistics 42: 575628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chien, Y.-E. and Wexler, K. 1990. ‘Children’s knowledge of locality conditions in binding as evidence for the modularity of syntax and pragmatics’, Language Acquisition 1: 225–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1968. Language and mind. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1973. ‘Conditions on transformations’, in Anderson, S. and Kiparsky, P. (eds.), A festschrift for Morris Halle. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, pp. 232–86.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1977. Essays on form and interpretation. New York: North-Holland.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1981. Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1986. Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1993. ‘A minimalist program for linguistic theory’, in Hale, K. and Keyser, J. (eds.), The view from Building 20: Essays in Linguistics in honor of Sylvain Bromberger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 152.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 2000. ‘Minimalist inquiries: The framework’, in Martin, R., Michaels, D. and Uriagereka, J. (eds.), Step by step: Essays on minimalist syntax in honor of Howard Lasnik. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 89156.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 2001. ‘Derivation by phase’, in Kenstowicz, M. (ed.), Ken Hale: A life in language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 153.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 2004. ‘Beyond explanatory adequacy’, in Belletti, A. (ed.), Structures and beyond: The cartography of syntactic structures, vol. 3. Oxford University Press, pp. 104–13.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 2005. ‘Three factors in language design’, Linguistic Inquiry 36: 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. 2008. ‘On phases’, in Freidin, R., Otero, C. and Zubizarreta, M.-L. (eds.), Foundational issues in linguistic theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 133–66.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 2013. ‘Problems of projection’, Lingua 130: 3349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cinque, G. 1999. Adverbs and functional heads: A crosslinguistic perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, W. 1995. ‘Autonomy and functionalist linguistics’, Language 71: 490532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, W. 1999. The diversity of human language construction and its influence on the mental development of the human species, 2nd rev. edn. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dahl, Ö. and Velupillai, V. 2011. ‘The past tense’, in Dryer, and Haspelmath, (eds.), ch. 66.Google Scholar
Daniel, M. 2011. ‘Plurality in independent pronouns’, in Dryer, and Haspelmath, (eds.), ch. 35.Google Scholar
de Villiers, J., Roeper, Th. and Vainikka, A. 1990. ‘The acquisition of long-distance rules’, in Frazier, L. and de Villiers, J. (eds.), Language processing and language acquisition. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 257–97.Google Scholar
Dixon, R. M. W. 2004. ‘Adjective classes in typological perspective’, in Dixon, R. M. W. and Aikhenvald, A. (eds.), Adjective classes: Across-linguistic typological study. Oxford University Press, pp. 149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryer, M. S. 1988. ‘Object-verb order and adjective-noun order: Dispelling a myth’, Lingua 74: 185217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryer, M. S. 1992. ‘The Greenbergian word order correlations’, Language 68: 81138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryer, M. S. and Haspelmath, M. (eds.) 2011. The World atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (available online at http://wals.info).Google Scholar
Endicott, P., Ho, S. Y. W. and Stringer, C. 2010. ‘Using genetic evidence to evaluate four paleoanthropological hypotheses for the timing of Neanderthal and modern human origins’, Journal of Human Evolution 59: 8795.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Everett, D. 2005. ‘Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã’, Current Anthropology 46: 621–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Everett, D. 2007. ‘Cultural constraints on grammar in Pirahã: A reply to Nevins, Pesetsky, and Rodrigues (2007)’. Online: http://ling.auf.net/lingBuzz/000427.Google Scholar
Feeney, A. 2014. ‘Language evolution: Constraints on conceptions of a minimalist language faculty’, unpublished PhD thesis, Newcastle University.Google Scholar
Fitch, T., Hauser, M. and Chomsky, N. 2005. ‘The evolution of the language faculty: Clarificatioons and implications’, Cognition 97: 179210.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fodor, J. D. 1978. ‘Parsing strategies and constraints on transformations’, Linguistic Inquiry 9: 427–73.Google Scholar
Fodor, J. D. 1983. ‘Phrase structure parsing and the island constraints’, Linguistics and Philosophy 6: 163223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fodor, J. D. 2009. ‘Syntax acquisition: An evaluation measure after all?’, in Palmarini, M. Piatelli, Uriagereka, J. and Salaburu, P. (eds.), Of minds and language: The Basque Country encounter with Noam Chomsky. Oxford University Press, pp. 256–77.Google Scholar
Givón, T. 1979. On understanding grammar. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. 1963. ‘Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements’, in Greenberg, J. (ed.), Universals of language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 5890. (Reprinted in Roberts, I. (ed.), 2007. Comparative grammar: Critical concepts, vol. 1. London: Routledge, pp. 4174.)Google Scholar
Greenberg, J., Ferguson, Ch. A. and Moravcsik, E. A. (eds.) 1978. Universals of human language. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, J. 1986. ‘Subjacency and the S/S’ parameter’, Linguistic Inquiry 17: 364–9.Google Scholar
Guasti, M. T. 2004. Language acquisition: The growth of grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, M., Dryer, M. S., Gil, D. and Comrie, B. (eds.) 2014. The world atlas of language structures. Munich: Max Planck Digital Library (available online at http://wals.info/).Google Scholar
Hauser, M., Chomsky, N. and Fitch, T. 2002. ‘The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?’, Science 198: 1569–79.Google Scholar
Hauser, M., Yang, C., Berwick, R., Tattersall, I., Ryan, M., Watumull, J., Chomsky, N. and Lewontin, R. 2014. ‘The mystery of language evolution’, Frontiers in Psychology 5: 401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hawkins, J. A. 1979. ‘Implicational universals as predictors of language change’, Language 55: 618–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, J. A. 1983. Word order universals. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hawkins, J. A. 1999. ‘Processing complexity and filler-gap dependencies across grammars’, Language 75: 244–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heycock, C. and Kroch, A. 1993. ‘Verb movement and the status of subjects: Implications for the theory of licensing’, Groninger Arbeiten zur germanistichen Linguistik 36: 75102.Google Scholar
Hinzen, W. and Sheehan, M. 2013. The philosophy of Universal Grammar. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmeister, P. and Sag, I. 2010. ’Cognitive constraints and island effects’, Language 86: 366415.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hofmeister, L., Casasanto, S. and Sag, I. 2013. ‘How do individual cognitive differences relate to acceptability judgements? A reply to Sprouse, Wagers, and Phillips’, Language 88: 390400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, A. 2010a. ‘Null subject parameters’, in Biberauer, T., Holmberg, A., Roberts, I. and Sheehan, M. (eds.), Parametric variation: Null subjects in minimalist theory. Cambridge University Press, pp. 88124.Google Scholar
Holmberg, A. 2010b. ‘Parameters in minimalist theory: The case of Scandinavian’, Theoretical Linguistics 36: 148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmberg, A. Forthcoming a. ‘Linguistic typology’, to appear in Roberts, I. (ed.), The Oxford handbook of Universal Grammar. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Holmberg, A. Forthcoming b. ‘The Final-over-Final Constraint in a mixed word order language’, in Sheehan, M., Holmberg, A. and Roberts, I. (eds.), The Final-over-Final Constraint. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Holmberg, A. and Roberts, I. 2014. ‘Parameters and three factors of language design’, in Picallo, C. (ed.), Linguistic variation in the minimalist framework. Oxford University Press, pp. 6181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hornstein, N. 2009. A theory of syntax: Minimal operations and universal grammar. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Horvath, J. 1986. FOCUS in the theory of grammar and the syntax of Hungarian. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Huang, J. 1982. ‘Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar’, unpublished PhD thesis, MIT.Google Scholar
Hyams, N. and Wexler, K. 1993. ‘On the grammatical basis of null subjects in child language’, Linguistic Inquiry 24: 421–59.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. 1994. The antisymmetry of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. 2000. Parameters and universals. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirby, S. and Hurford, J. (2002). ‘The emergence of linguistic structure: An overview of the iterated learning model’, in Cangelosi, A. and Parisi, D. (eds.), Simulating the evolution of language. London: Springer, pp. 121–48.Google Scholar
Kirby, S. and Christiansen, M. H. 2003. ‘From language learning to language evolution’, in Christiansen, M. and Kirby, S. (eds.), Language evolution. Oxford University Press, pp. 272–94.Google Scholar
É. Kiss, K. 1987. Configurationality in Hungarian. Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kluender, R. 1998. ‘On the distinction between strong and weak islands: A processing perspective’, in Culicover, P. and McNally, L. (eds.), Syntax and semantics, vol. 29: The limits of syntax. New York: Academic Press, pp. 241–79.Google Scholar
Kluender, R. 2004. ‘Are subject islands subject to a processing account?’, West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics (WCCFL) 23: 101–25.Google Scholar
Kluender, R. and Kutas, M. 1993. ‘Subjacency as a processing phenomenon’, Language and Cognitive Processes 8: 573633.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroch, A. and Taylor, A. 2000. ‘Verb-Object order in Early Middle English’, in Pintzuk, S., Tsoulas, G. and Warner, A. (eds.), Diachronic syntax: Models and mechanisms. Oxford University Press, pp. 132–63.Google Scholar
Legendre, G., Grimshaw, J. and Vikner, S. (eds.) 2001. Optimality-Theoretic syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, W. 1973. ‘A structural principle of language and its implications’, Language 49: 4766.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, W. (ed.) 1978. Syntactic typology: Studies in the phenomenology of language. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, D. 1979. Principles of diachronic syntax. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McCarthy, J. 2001. A thematic guide to Optimality Theory. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, J. 1996. ‘The scope of verb-movement in Irish’, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 14: 47104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nevins, A., Pesetsky, D. and Rodrigues, C. 2009a. ‘Pirahã exceptionality: A reassessment’, Language 85: 355404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nevins, A., Pesetsky, D. and Rodrigues, C. 2009b. ‘Evidence and argumentation: A reply to Everett (2009)’, Language 85: 671–81.Google Scholar
Newmeyer, F. 1998. Language form and language function. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pérez-Leroux, A. T. 1993. Empty categories and the acquisition of wh-movement. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Pérez-Leroux, A. and Kahnemuyipour, A. 2014. ‘News, somewhat exaggerated: Commentary on Ambridge, Pine, and Lieven’, Language (Perspectives) 90: 115–25.Google Scholar
Prince, A. and Smolensky, P. 1993. Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science Technical Report 2.Google Scholar
Ramchand, G. and Svenonius, P. 2008. ‘Mapping a parochial lexicon onto a universal smantics’, in Biberauer, M. T. (ed.), The limits of syntactic variation. Amsterdam:John Benjamins, pp. 219–45.Google Scholar
Ritter, E. and Wiltschko, M. 2009. ‘Varieties of INFL: TENSE, LOCATION and PERSON’, in van Craenenbroeck, J. (ed.), Alternatives to cartography. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 153201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, L. 1978. ‘Violations of the wh-island constraint and the subjacency condition’, in Dubisson, C., Lightfoot, D. and Morin, Y.-C. (eds.), Montreal Working Papers in Linguistics 11: 155–90. (Reprinted in Rizzi, L. 1982. Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris, pp. 4976.)Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. 1982. Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, L. 1990. Relativized minimality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. 1997. ‘The fine structure of the left periphery’, in Haegeman, Liliane (ed.), Elements of grammar. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 281337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, I. 1993. Verbs and diachronic syntax: A comparative history of English and French. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Roberts, I. and Holmberg, A. 2010. ‘Introduction’, in Biberauer, T., Holmberg, A., Roberts, I. and Sheehan, M. (eds.), Parametric variation: Null subjects in minimalist theory. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rodrigues, C. and Sândalo, F. Forthcoming. ‘Word order as evidence for recursion in Pirahã’, to appear in Amaral, L., Maia, M., Nevins, A. and Roeper, T. (eds.), Recursion in Brazilian Languages and Beyond. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Roeper, T. and de Villiers, J. 1994. ‘Lexical links in the wh-chain’, in Lust, B., Hermon, G. and Kornfilt, J. (eds.), Syntactic theory and first language acquisition: Cross-linguistic perspectives, vol. II: Binding, dependencies, and learnability. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 357–90.Google Scholar
Ross, J. R. 1967. ‘Constraints on variables in syntax’, unpublished PhD thesis, MIT.Google Scholar
Schütze, C., Sprouse, J. and Caponigro, I. 2015. ‘Challenges for a theory of islands: A broader perspective on Ambridge, Pine, and Lieven’, Language 91(2): 3139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheehan, M. 2013. ‘Some Implications of a Copy Theory of Labeling’, Syntax 16: 362–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigurðsson, H. Á. 2004. ‘Meaningful silence, meaningless sounds’, Linguistic Variation Yearbook 4: 235–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sigurðsson, H. Á. 2011a. ‘On UG and materialization’, Linguistic Analysis 37: 367–88.Google Scholar
Sigurðsson, H. Á. 2011b. ‘Uniformity and diversity: A minimalist perspective’, Linguistic Variation 11: 189222.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sprouse, J., Wagers, M. and Phillips, C. 2012. ‘A test of the relation between working-memory capacity and syntactic island effects’, Language 88: 82123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tattersall, I. 1998. Becoming human: Evolution and human uniqueness. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Tattersall, I. 2012. Masters of the planet: The search for human origins. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Terrace, H. 1979. Nim. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Terrace, H. 2005. ‘Metacognition and the evolution of language’, in Terrace, H. and Metcalfe, J. (eds.), The missing link in cognition: Origins of self-reflective consciousness. Oxford University Press, pp. 84115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Venneman, Th. 1974. ‘Topics, subjects, and word order: From SXV to SVX via TVX’, in Anderson, J. and Jones, C. (eds.), Historical linguistics. Amsterdam: North-Holland, pp. 339–76.Google Scholar
Venneman, Th. 1984. ‘Typology, universals, and change of language’, in Fisiak, J. (ed.), Historical syntax (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 23). Berlin: Mouton, pp. 593612.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Worden, R. P. 1995. ‘A speed limit for evolution’, Journal of Theoretical Biology 176: 137–52.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×