A Comparative Syntactic Review of Null-Subject Parameter in English and Izon Languages

Scientific Essay from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, , language: English, abstract: The theory of universal grammar relies heavily on the biolinguistic concept of natural endowment and innate knowledge of the general principles of language. It postulates that all humans are naturally endowed with the general rules and configurations of language and to this extent, all natural languages have similar structural features.

The theory of universal grammar as hypothesised by Chomsky and propagated by other linguists however recognizes the existence of language-specific idiosyncratic features that constitute parametric variations among languages. These are the parameters of universal grammar. The most prominent parameters that create distinctions between languages are head directionality, pro-drop or null-subject and wh- parameters.

This paper reviews the null-subject parameter in English and juxtaposes its occurrence or non-occurrence in Izon language and its implications for language acquisition.