Parameter setting in the language of children at an early stage of acquisition

Abstract

The concept of Universal Grammar (UG) has emerged as Minimalist Program that studies the language at phrase-structure level. The principles of Universal Grammar are meant to be principally based on universally accepted criteria. The criteria, also known as “criteria of adequacy” consist of four principles: adequate description, explanation, definition and learnability, which govern the categorization of parameters at phrase-structure level to be applicable to all languages of the world. The present study aimed at analyzing the parameter setting of Urdu as a mother tongue in the language acquisition process of a child at a very early stage in terms of subjects, null subjects and head-positions parameters. It was found that wh-parameters were quite difficult for the children to acquire and there were certain differences and similarities in terms of the efficient setting of specific parameters.