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On the Nature of Syntactic Variation: Evidence from Complex Predicates and Complex Word-Formation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

William Snyder
William Snyder*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut and Haskins Laboratories
*
Department of Linguistics, University of Connecticut, 341 Mansfield Road, Storrs, CT 06269-1145 [wsnyder@uconnvm.uconn.edu]
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Abstract

The existence of substantive parametric variation in syntax, as characterized in Chomsky 1981, has been questioned in the more recent generative literature, notably in Borer 1984, Fukui 1986, and Chomsky 1993. This article provides converging evidence from child language acquisition and comparative syntax for the existence of a syntactic parameter in the classical sense of Chomsky 1981, with simultaneous effects on syntactic argument structure (e.g., verb-particle constructions) and complex word-formation (root compounding). The implications are first that syntax is indeed subject to points of substantive parametric variation as envisioned in Chomsky 1981, and second that the time course of child language acquisition is a potentially rich source of evidence about the innate constraints on language variation.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 77 , Issue 2 , June 2001, pp. 324 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Linguistic Society of America

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