Choosing a Grammar

This book investigates the role that ambiguous evidence can play in the acquisition of syntax. To illustrate this, the book introduces a probabilistic learning model for syntactic parameters that learns a grammar of best fit to the learner’s evidence. The model is then applied to a range of cross-linguistic case studies – in Swiss German, Korean, and English – involving child errors, grammatical variability, and implicit negative evidence. Building on earlier work on language modeling, this book