Against a parameter-setting approach to typological variation

The dominant position among generative grammarians with respect to typological variation is that it should be captured by parameters, which are either directly tied to principles of Universal Grammar (UG) or to functional projections provided by UG. Parameter-setting approaches, however, have failed to live up to their promise. They should be replaced by a model in which language-particular rules take over the work of parameter settings and in which most typological variation follows from independently-needed principles of performance. In such a model, UG specifies the class of possible languages, but not the set of probable languages.

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