ABSTRACT
The “principles and parameters” approach to linguistic theory has spawned a flurry of research in language acquisition linking the source of learners’ errors and their eventual disappearance to the setting and resetting of hypothesized linguistic parameters. Under parametric accounts of language, Universal Grammar provides a small number of parameters each with two (or more) settings. When these differently set parameters are combined, the result is the array of innately possible grammars, exhibiting the major structural differences that we see between languages.
