Cross-linguistic variation
Cross-linguistic variation
One Cartesian reason for taking thought to be independent of language—or to have its own ‘Language of thought’—is that language is subject to massive cross-linguistic variation, while thought is not. So Chapter 5 addresses the issue of cross-linguistic variation: its dimensions, and its extent. Does it provide a challenge for our account of universal grammar? Not inasmuch as the primary dimension of variation is the organization of language at a lexical and morphological level; not, if what have traditionally been thought of as syntactic parameters actually reduce to variation in modes of externalization.
Keywords: Linguistic variation, principles and parameters, word order, null subjects, Case
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
