ABSTRACT
This chapter is somewhat programmatic, and sketches a way of reconceiving the notion of parameter of Universal Grammar along novel lines, intended to meet recent criticisms from Newmeyer and Boeckx, and to provide a fully workable research programme for the formal study of cross-linguistic variation in syntax. For language acquisition, each parameter hierarchy defines a learning path, much in the sense of Dresher, with the higher options inherently preferred by the acquirer. More generally, we can think of the hierarchies as an epigenetic landscape, defined by incrementally more computationally complex options as the learner ‘moves down the tree’. A further relevant point is that the possible mechanisms and directions of change may in all cases be subject to UG-derived constraints. In the area of word-order/linearization a particularly interesting one may be the ways in which the Final-over-Final Condition constrains possible ‘intermediate’ systems in change from general head-initial to general head-final order, or vice versa.
