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To come to terms with the logical problem of language change, many historical linguists subscribe to the view that the syntax is in a state of equilibrium and does not change by itself. This chapter develops an alternative theory, which derives the complexity of syntactic change from the inherent dynamism and flexibility of an autonomous syntactic component. In explaining syntactic variation and change in terms of language design, it seeks to bridge the gap between historical linguistics and (synchronic) syntactic theory.

This chapter investigates syntactic variation through both a theoretical and an empirical lens. From an overview of socially conditioned syntactic variation it is suggested that a major issue with extending the sociolinguistic variable to morphosyntax is a lack of differentiation between types of syntactic variables. The chapter argues that syntactic variables without clearly identifiable covariants may best be viewed as microparametric variation. The double modal construction is presented as a case study of this type of variable, and analyzed as microparametric variation involving the co-occurrence of an epistemic modal without syntactic tense and a root modal with tense. Additionally, results from a sociolinguist study of the social constraints on acceptability judgments of double modals are given, and methodological concerns in the empirical study of microparametric variation are highlighted.

This chapter presents the main aspects related to the following problems: syntax of moods and tenses, pronominal clitics (position of clitics in the clause, clitic climbing structures, position of clitics relative to the finite and non-finite verbal forms, to the weak adverbs and the negator, clitic clusters), syntactic variation in the verbal domain (variant arguments, reflexive and non-reflexive verbs, variation in the selection of the preposition), arguments (subject, objects – direct, secondary, indirect, prepositional objects –, property-denoting complements) and their main changes in the passage to modern Romanian. Special attention is paid to the several constructions involving overall clausal structures (be-passive vs. se-passive, middle and anaphoric reflexives, reciprocal structures, and adverbal possessive dative clitics).

Using linguistic varieties that are similar overall, linguists are able to determine where and how grammatical systems differ, and how they change over time. The aim of this book is to provide a systematic look at minimal differences in the syntax of varieties of English spoken in North America. The book uses a range of data on unfamiliar constructions drawn from several regional and social dialects, This data, the distribution and grammatical properties of which, shed light on the varieties under examination and on the properties of English syntax more generally. The other chapters fall cover overlapping topics: variation in the expression of negation and modality (the so don’t I construction in eastern New England, negative auxiliary inversion in declaratives in African-American and southern white English, multiple modals in southern speech, the “needs washed” construction in the Pittsburgh area), pronouns and reflexives (transitive expletives in Appalachia, personal dative constructions in the Southern/Mountain states, long-distance reflexives in the Minnesota Iron Range), and the relation between linguistic variation and language change (the rise of “drama so” among younger speakers, the difficulty in establishing which phenomena cluster together and should be explained by a single point of parametric variation).

This introduction offers a summary of the antecedents, goals, and prospects of the present volume. On the one hand, it emphasizes the important role of this collection of papers. It’s the first attempt to provide a global characterization of the syntactic variation of Spanish dialects. This is a very rich, but largely unexplored, area of inquiry, a situation that is probably due to a combination of various factors: lack of theoretical tools, interest in more easily observable (lexical, phonetic, or morphological) differences, etc. On the other hand, it introduces chapters that show varying and complementary formal approaches to the study of the syntactic phenomena of both American Spanish and European Spanish dialects.

The introductory chapter offers a general overview of the main topics being investigated in the field of syntactic variation from a minimalist perspective. It introduces the different approaches adopted by the contributors in their studies of the various language variation phenomena looked at in the volume, including the role of macro‐ and micro‐parameters; feature organization; the explicitness (or lack of it) that should be assumed with respect to the conditions imposed by narrow syntax; and whether language variation can be ascribed to socio‐linguistic factors, language contact, frequency of use, or simply to options in the externalization of abstract syntactic relations.

The first part of the chapter sketches out the history of the parametric approach to syntactic variation since its origins some thirty years ago. The chapter then addresses the format and locus of parameters within current minimalist models, and spells out a conception of parameters as elementary instructions for syntactic actions coded in the functional lexicon. Two kinds of critiques of this approach are discussed: critiques specifically targeting the idea of parameters as the mechanism for variation; and broader critiques addressing the general issue of whether a dedicated language faculty constrains variation. The last part turns to language acquisition evidence and its relevance for the models of linguistic variation. Experimental evidence supports the view that the child possesses abstract knowledge of word order properties from very early on. This is expected within an approach based on a biologically determined language faculty consisting of a system of principles and parameters.

The different patterns of the direct (i.e., lexical) causativization exhibited by intransitive verbs are a fundamental topic in the lexical semantics area. The possibilities and restrictions observed in the causativization of intransitives have always triggered divisions in their classification beyond the classical unergative-unaccusative distinction. Spanish is an interesting language in which to explore the limits between possibilities and constraints regarding this phenomenon, given the syntactic variation exhibited by its different dialects. This chapter focuses on variation in the form of contrasts between intransitive predicates that resist lexical causativization in Standard Spanish, such as caer “fall” and entrar “go in,” but allow it in certain Southern Peninsular Spanish dialects such as Andalusian, looking at the relationship between such patterns and other phenomena such as the eventive structure obtained as a consequence of the composition of the verbs under study and other syntactic elements such as reflexive se.

In this chapter we propose an analysis for Differential Object Marking (DOM) constructions. We also suggest a particular use of the pronominal object clitic le (which we call differential clitic marking) in some dialects of Spanish. Our approach to DOM is based on the existence of syntactic variation in little v—in the sense that it cannot license a particular kind of DPs and in the analysis of the preposition a as a probe that licenses these DPs. We also consider that pronominal l-clitics are elements that do not encode animacy and that the object clitic le is a form not specified for gender used for masculine referents in colloquial Catalonian Spanish. This allows us to capture some correlations between DOM and some instances of leísmo (understood as a particular marking of object clitics, not as a case of dativization).

This chapter is dedicated to the syntax of spoken French. Section 1, which focuses on ‘orality’, presents some phenomena related to ‘oral’ situational parameters with reference to spoken French: speech production processes, ‘ellipsis’, the use of deictics, and discourse markers. Section 2 considers whether we speak in sentences or not, and examines the use of tenses, moods, and voices in spoken French, the frequent non-use of negative ne, as well as the use of interrogative constructions. Section 3, entitled ‘Between syntax and discourse’, evokes the so-called ‘syntax of spoken French’, and mentions some preferred constructions in spoken French, i.e. left detachment (or dislocation) and presentational structures, before closing with a brief reflection on whether spoken French can be considered as an illustration of syntactic variation.

The chapter discusses changes in the case/Case system in Germanic languages, especially in dative-nominative (DAT-NOM) constructions in Icelandic. Some Germanic languages, such as English and Swedish, have undergone drastic changes with respect to c/Case. In Faroese oblique subjects are on the way out: oblique subjects of monadic verbs are (nearly) lost, and DAT-NOM constructions in the active have become dative-accusative (DAT-ACC) or even nominative-accusative (NOM-ACC). This is what is known. What is not known, however, are the details of these changes. However, changes in the Icelandic c/Case system, comparable to the changes mentioned above, can shed some light on the diachronic development in these languages. We claim that there is an ongoing change in Icelandic, from the DAT-NOM construction to DAT-ACC—not only in the passive of ditransitive verbs, as has already been shown (Jónsson 2009a), but also in the active voice of DAT-NOM verbs. This chapter reports the results of a written questionnaire conducted in 2009. The change in Icelandic is then compared to similar changes that have already occurred in some other Germanic languages. The chapter suggests that the change is an expected development. Furthermore, the chapter agrees with Legate (2008) that case is established in the syntax but realized in the morphology. At an intermediate stage, NOM-ACC case, established in the syntax, is disguised, first as DAT-NOM case and then as DAT-ACC, before becoming NOM-ACC case.

This chapter proposes an account for the grammaticalization of Hungarian postpositions. Based on Old Hungarian data, it is argued that the change from nouns to postpositions goes via an intermediate stage, which corresponds to an intermediate syntactic category and position, AxialPart. In Old Hungarian, some Postpositional Phrases (PPs) exhibit a syntactic variation analogous to possessive constructions, which suggests that those postpositional elements still have some nominal features and that they are not fully grammaticalized Ps yet. Those elements that do not show possessive variation and those that are suffixal are P heads, that is, they are generated either in a Place head or in a Path head within the PP.

Appalachian English displays discontinuous subjects consisting of they or there and a quantifier, e.g., “They won’t nobody know you’re gone.” These subjects require the presence of a modal or auxiliary negated via n’t. This chapter argues that the negated modal or auxiliary moves to a position within the IP domain from which it c-commands the quantifier, in order to unambiguously mark the scope of negation. It then acts as a probe that attracts a feature of the quantifier, which moves to a higher structural position (the specifier of the auxiliary or modal) and spells out as they or there. More generally, it is proposed that a necessary condition for Transitive Expletive Constructions (in Appalachian English as in other Germanic languages) is that a finite element moves through two head positions within the IP domain.

This chapter focuses on Jespersen’s cycle and the emergence of pas ‘not’ 〈 ‘step’ as a new marker of negation, considering especially pragmatic constraints on its earlier use (cancellation of presupposition) and the sociolinguistics of the ongoing replacement of bipartite negation (ne…pas) with single negation (pas) in colloquial French. It also looks at the development of French indefinites, which have become restricted to more negative environments (e.g. rien ‘thing’ 〉 ‘anything’ 〉 ‘nothing’).