ABSTRACT

The importance of the notion of parameter setting in recent linguistic theory conceived as a cognitive science resides in the fact that it combines a model of language variation with a model of how a given language can be acquired under normal circumstances of language development. The aim of the present study is to show, on the basis of longitudinal data from French and German, that the parameter-setting approach to language acquisition encounters a number of problems, and further, to suggest what modifications might be made to alleviate them.