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 Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 4:30 pm
there is something called the principles and parameters or universal grammar. they involve all the different combinations for how a language can be.
for example, one is the Null-Subject Parameter.
if it's on, a language can prodrop,(drop a pronoun), like in Spanish how the Yo in Yo Quiero can be dropped to Quiero. If it's off, it's like in English how I is needed in the phrase I want.
I believe there are 14 parameters in total. and they really help for coming up with ideas on how to make a language.
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Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:34 pm
I've never been fond of the principles and parameters notion of universal grammar. Sure, it'd be a nice way to classify languages, but, like a lot of Chomsky's work, it ignores the fact that natural languages evolve via usage and that children seem to learn in a probabilistic, Bayesian manner rather than deductively; in fact, a lot of developmental linguistics contradicts Chomsky's thesis.
In other words, I'm not a fan of Universal Grammar and I've seen more evidence against than for it, as have most of the linguists and cognitive scientists that I pay attention to.
But I guess they might be a good way to get started on a grammar. nerurav doesn't have anything in the way of word order and has a different notion of syntactic category so a lot of the principles and parameters are irrelevant or meaningless.
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