The Emergence and Refinement of Grammars: perspectives from syntax and phonology

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This research is set in the context of neo-emergentist and Three Factors approaches to language acquisition, particularlythose that assume a radically impoverished Universal Grammar. The proposed project would aim to probe further theempirical feasibility, in language acquisition and also in synchrony and diachrony, of the hypothesis that linguisticcategories and formal features are emergent, being created as part of the acquisition process and being refined during it.The project would start by providing additional empirical support for the preliminary findings in my MPhil thesis, where Iargue the acquisitional evidence is incompatible with models which take a fine-grained adult-like spine in UniversalGrammar to be the point of departure for child grammars. Subsequently, I would extend inquiry from syntactic acquisitionto phonology and diachrony. Recent literature (Klævik-Pettersen & Cournane, 2021; Vaux, 2022; Lee & Cournane, 2019)has provided case-studies that align with the predictions in the theoretical approach here (which follows Bosch, 2022, inprogress). The second goal would thus be to detect similar examples in diachrony and phonology. Overall, this PhDthesis would develop the neo-emergentist model outlined in my BA and MPhil theses (which draws on Biberauer, 2019,and Biberauer & Roberts, 2015) and would aim to show that "Three Factors" models provide fresh insights into enduringquestions in linguistic theory, such as the ontological bases of language.