This book traces the history of the concept of parameter in Generative Grammar, from the first steps of the Principles and Parameters (P&P) model in the late 1970s to the advent of the Minimalist Program (MP), examining how this notion was implemented during this transition, and how it has developed since then. The analysis in this book starts from the systematization of the so-called Standard Theory of Generative Grammar in Chomsky (Reference Chomsky1965) and continues up to the latest developments of the MP.
Chapter 1 offers an overview of the protohistory of the concept of parameter by focusing on the factors, both theoretical and empirical, at the basis of the systematic formulation of this notion in Chomsky (Reference Chomsky1981a). The theoretical factors are identified with the distinction between descriptive and explanatory adequacy and Chomsky’s proposed solution to the so-called problem of the poverty of the stimulus. The empirical factor consists in the outcome of Rizzi’s and Taraldsen’s pre-parametric inquiries, which shed new light on the systematicity of linguistic variation.
Chapter 2 examines the individual formulation of the main parameters that were proposed in Generative Grammar within the Government-Binding (GB) Theory of the eighties. While the parameters at issue are taken from the list that is proposed in Rizzi (Reference Rizzi and Picallo2014), in the first part of the chapter they are retrospectively classified according to the specific syntactic property they would refer to in current minimalist theories.
Chapter 3 focuses on the debate about the concept of parameter which took place during the first decade of the twenty-first century. The first two positions discussed are Kayne’s (Reference Kayne and Kayne2000, Reference Kayne, Cinque and Kayne2005) microparametric approach, which draws from the idea that parametric variation is located in the lexicon, and Baker’s (Reference Baker2001, Reference Baker and Biberauer2008a) macroparametric approach, which instead relies on the classical idea that parameters are expressed on principles. These two approaches are then confronted with Newmeyer’s (Reference Newmeyer2004, Reference Newmeyer2005) criticism, which points out their descriptive and theoretical flaws. Finally, two lines of linguistic inquiry which are particularly relevant to the evaluation of the notion of parameter carried on in this chapter are presented, namely Roberts and Holmberg’s (Reference Roberts, Holmberg, Biberauer, Holmberg, Roberts and Sheehan2010) parametric model and Longobardi’s and his collaborators’ Parametric Comparison Method (PCM). On the one hand, the parametric model proposed by Roberts and Holmberg (Reference Roberts, Holmberg, Biberauer, Holmberg, Roberts and Sheehan2010) overcomes the limitations of micro- and macroparameters by combining a lexically based, microparametric view of linguistic variation with the idea that parametric variation is an emergent property of the interaction of Universal Grammar (UG), primary linguistic data, and third factor considerations. On the other hand, the unprecedented results achieved by the PCM in establishing the genealogical relations among languages on the basis of syntactic comparison arguably attest to the validity of the parametric model for linguistic variation.
Chapters 4 and 5 evaluate the classical parameters of the GB Theory which still play a role in current generative theory. Chapter 4 reviews the null subject parameter, the verb movement parameter, the polysynthesis parameter, and the overt vs. covert wh-movement parameter, while Chapter 5 is devoted to the history of the head-complement parameter. While on the one hand null subject, verb movement, and polysynthesis can be reconciled with Roberts and Holmberg’s theory, which is based on the assumption that the locus of parameters is the functional lexicon, on the other it is argued that wh-movement and head directionality pertain to the sensorimotor interface, as envisioned by Berwick and Chomsky (Reference Berwick, Chomsky, Di Sciullo and Boeckx2011).
Finally, Chapter 6 draws the conclusions of the historical review performed in the previous chapters and ends with final remarks on the latest views on parametric variation. In particular, it is argued that Chomsky’s (Reference Chomsky2021a) extra-syntactic account of head movement suggests the possibility of developing a unified theory overcoming the duality between the ‘syntactic parameters’ accounting for the emergence of null arguments and verb movement on one side and ‘linearization parameters’, like the ones responsible for overt vs. covert wh-movement and head directionality, on the other.
