Blackwell Reference Online

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The development of modern syntactic frameworks and the growth of research in the field of comparative syntax have enabled the rigorous investigation of syntactic change. In one sense, diachronic syntax can be regarded as a form of comparative syntax, where the comparison is between two different stages of the same language rather than between two different cotemporaneous languages or dialects. In the terminology of the Principles and Parameters framework (Chomsky and Lasnik 1993), the difference between two stages of a language can be regarded as a difference in the values of one or more parameter settings; and the goal of the diachronic syntactician is to explain how and why parameter settings change. I will present evidence in this chapter to support the hypothesis that parameter settings do not change abruptly, but rather that change proceeds via competition between two alternative parameter settings during periods of syntactic variation.The term “variationist” when describing approaches to syntactic change is best understood as referring to methodology rather than to a specific framework or a general philosophy. When the systematic syntactic variation exhibited by languages during periods of change is analyzed quantitatively, generalizations emerge which enable us to describe the time course of syntactic change, and therefore to begin to understand and explain how change starts ... log in or subscribe to read full text