
Contents
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16.1 Introduction 16.1 Introduction
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16.2 Parametric Linguistics and Levels of Adequacy 16.2 Parametric Linguistics and Levels of Adequacy
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16.3 The Domain of Data 16.3 The Domain of Data
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16.4 The Implicational Structure of Parametric Diversity 16.4 The Implicational Structure of Parametric Diversity
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16.5 Encoding Implicational Constraints: Distances and Possible Languages 16.5 Encoding Implicational Constraints: Distances and Possible Languages
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16.6 Testing Parameters through Historical Adequacy 16.6 Testing Parameters through Historical Adequacy
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16.7 Parameters and Horizontal Transmission 16.7 Parameters and Horizontal Transmission
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16.8 Parameter Schemata 16.8 Parameter Schemata
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16.9 Conclusion and Perspectives 16.9 Conclusion and Perspectives
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16 Parameter Theory and Parametric Comparison
Get accessCristina Guardiano is Associate Professor of Linguistics at the Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia. She specialized in historical syntax at the Università di Pisa, where she got her Ph.D., with a dissertation about the internal structure of DPs in Ancient Greek. She is active in research on the parametric analysis of nominal phrases, the study of diachronic and dialectal syntactic variation, crosslinguistic comparison, and phylogenetic reconstruction. She is a member of the Syntactic Structures of the World’s Languages (SSWL) research team, and a project advisor in the ERC Advanced Grant ‘LanGeLin’.
Giuseppe Longobardi is Anniversary Professor of Linguistics at the University of York and Principal Investigator on the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant ‘Meeting Darwin’s last challenge: Toward a global tree of human languages and genes’ (2012–2017). He has done research in theoretical and comparative syntax, especially on the syntax/ontology relation in nominal expressions. He is interested in quantitative approaches to language comparison and phylogenetic linguistics, and is active in interdisciplinary work with genetic anthropologists. Over the past ten years he has contributed the design of three innovative research programs (Topological Mapping theories, Parametric Minimalism, and the Parametric Comparison Method).
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Published:06 February 2017
Cite
Abstract
The Parametric Comparison Method (PCM) is a comparative procedure designed to investigate phylogenetic relationships between languages. It is based on the assumption that (syntactic) parameter theories may provide a radically new and mathematically reliable system or studying the historical evolution and classification of languages into families, and that the synchronic and the historical study of formal grammar can be ultimately related within a unified approach, made available precisely by the rise of parametric linguistics. This chapter shows that parameter analyses can be successfully used to attain historical adequacy: the fact that parametric classifications largely match the established families demonstrates the possibility of reconstructing history through syntactic parameters, which appear to carry a chronologically deep, statistically robust, and prevailingly vertical historical signal. In addition, parameter systems as theories of grammatical variation and its implicational structure receive novel support precisely from their success with historical issues: the correctness of the phylogenetic hypotheses made by the PCM further confirms the universal theory of parameters, constraints, and implications subsumed into it.
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