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SUMMARY:Moving up and down parameter hierarchies: markedness\, third facto
 rs and diachrony - Prof Ian Roberts (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20230511T153000Z
DTEND:20230511T170000Z
UID:TALK199417@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:96469
DESCRIPTION:Parameter hierarchies of the kind proposed and developed at le
 ngth in Roberts (2019) give us an automatic definition of markedness: the 
 lower an option is in a hierarchy\, the more marked it is. It follows that
  any diachronic change which involves a system moving from a higher to a l
 ower option on a parameter hierarchy is in fact a change from a relatively
  less to a relatively more marked option. Conversely\, any change which in
 volves movement upwards in a parameter hierarchy involves movement from a 
 more to a less marked option. \n\nI will discuss and illustrate several ex
 amples of changes involving feature loss and concomitant movement upwards 
 in a parameter hierarchy (the loss of V-to-T movement in Early Modern Engl
 ish\, the loss of V2 in the history of English\, the loss of multiple wh-m
 ovement between Latin and Romance and the loss of wh-movement altogether i
 n various languages including Chinese\; see the parameter hierarchy for wh
 -movement in Roberts 2019:529). \n\nOn the other hand\, there are also exa
 mples of changes in which a system moves downwards in a hierarchy. For exa
 mple\, the Final Over Final Condition (FOFC) requires word-order change fr
 om head-final to head-initial to affect higher heads in a given Extended P
 rojection before\, or at least not later than\, it affects lower ones. I w
 ill present evidence that TP changed from head-final to head-initial in bo
 th the history of English and the history of Latin/Romance. The evidence f
 or successive shifts from head-final to head-initial orders in successivel
 y lower categories in the clause is evidence of systems moving down the wo
 rd-order parameter hierarchy over time\, and hence change from relatively 
 less to relatively more marked. A further case of this type is the change 
 from consistent to partial to non-null-subject-language\, seen in the hist
 ory of several Germanic languages as well as French.\n\nOn the one hand\, 
 it is desirable to have a mechanism allowing change from less to more mark
 ed systems: our theory of change must accommodate the fact that the overal
 l range of diversity in the world’s languages does not\, as far as can b
 e discerned\, seem to have changed over time. Certainly there is no eviden
 ce for any kind of general tendency towards a steady-state maximally unmar
 ked system. On the other hand\, if the notion of markedness is to have rea
 l content\, there should be at least a weak dispreference for change from 
 less to marked in contrast to change in the opposite direction. I will sug
 gest that exactly this near-equilibrium can be achieved by the right appro
 ach to the third factors in language design (see Chomsky 2005).\n\nConside
 r the three third factors Feature Economy (FE)\, Input Generalisation (IG)
  and the Subset Principle:\n\n(1) (i) Feature Economy (FE) (see Roberts & 
 Roussou (2003: 201)): Postulate as few FFs as possible\, given the PLD.\n(
 ii) Input Generalisation (IG) (see Roberts (2007a: 275)): Maximise availab
 le FFs.\n(iii) Subset Principle (SP) (Berwick 1982): Postulate the smalles
 t grammar compatible with the Primary Linguistic Data.\n\nFE does not alwa
 ys disfavour movement down a parameter hierarchy: it frequently alters the
  distribution of features in a system without changing the inventory of fe
 atures. The lower options in a hierarchy are\, however\, successively more
  marked in relation to IG\, but not necessarily in relation to FE. Both FE
  and IG favour higher positions in parameter hierarchies and therefore fav
 our upward parametric changes\, but only IG actively disfavours lower posi
 tions\; FE\, to the extent that new features are not introduced in lower p
 ositions but only the distribution of features is affected\, is neutral. F
 urthermore\, the Subset Principle can also be seen in this light: if we th
 ink of  the Subset Principle as a preference to avoid superset traps by pr
 eferring more restricted feature distributions over less restricted ones\,
  then it will always favour going down the hierarchy as an acquisition str
 ategy. To this extent\, the Subject Principle favours lower\, and therefor
 e more marked\, parameter setting. But the effects of the Subject Principl
 e are slight and indirect as far as syntactic change is concerned. \n   \n
 Taking the three third factors together then\, we have the following gener
 al picture:\n\n	                 *Upward change*  *Downward change*\n*Feat
 ure Economy*	 Favoured	  Neutral\n*Input Generalisation*	 Favoured	  Disfa
 voured\n*Subset Principle*	 Disfavoured 	  Favoured\n\nTABLE 3.1   Third f
 actors in relation to direction of change in a parameter hierarchy\n\nWe s
 ee that\, taken together\, the third factors give rise to a slight prefere
 nce for upward over downward change in parameter hierarchies\, i.e. from m
 ore to less marked. Given that markedness always involves preferences\, th
 is seems like a good result.\n
LOCATION:English Faculty\, GR05
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