Looking for Parametric Correlations within Faroese

Abstract

This paper first reviews some parameters that have been suggested to account for variation within Scandinavian, focussing for concreteness on the parameters proposed by Holmberg and Platzack (1995) and Bobaljik and Thráinsson (1998). As this review shows, Faroese is not as well behaved as the parametric approach to Scandinavian syntax would lead us to expect. In addition, the variation found within Faroese syntax is often gradient and not as categorical as the conventional parametric approach to variation would predict. Yet it can be shown that some of the correlations predicted by Holmberg and Platzack’s (1995) Agr Parameter and Bobaljik and Thráinsson’s (1998) Split IP Parameter are found in Faroese syntax and they are turn out to be statistically significant. In the final section it is argued that to account for facts of this sort we need to revise our ideas about parametric variation, language acquisition and the nature of internalized grammars — and that this will be necessary regardless of what we think of the particular formulation of parameters assumed by Holmberg and Platzack on the one hand and Bobaljik and Thráinsson on the other.

Keywords

• Faroese
• syntactic variation
• parameters
• dialects
• Insular Scandinavian
• Mainland Scandinavian