Some Notes on Comparative Syntax

This chapter discusses comparative syntax and the parameters underlying some very fine-grained differences (in the area of quantity words) between English and French. One type of parameter proposed involves the choice between pronouncing and leaving silent a particular functional element. Comparative syntax necessarily involves work on more than one language, but it is not that simple. On the one hand, it attempts to characterize and delineate the parameters that ultimately underlie cross-linguistic differences in syntax. On the other hand, it attempts to exploit those differences as a new and often exciting source of evidence bearing on the characterization and delineation of the principles of universal grammar, of the properties that, by virtue of holding of the (syntactic component of the) human language faculty, will be found to hold of every human language.