Abstract
The present research lies in the field of language acquisition. Chomsky’s principles and parameters (1981, 1986) serve as the theoretical framework for this study. The research takes acquisition of Urdu as a case. The data for the study comprises of common recorded utterances produced by children between the ages of 24-30 months, acquiring Urdu language. The study explores the parametric settings and adjustments in these utterances. The results show that children remained consistent with non-null subject, head last principle while wh fronting was rarely observed in these utterances. Knowledge of the parametric settings can be helpful for the language teachers in predicting difficulties in second language acquisition. It offers a plausible solution to the logical problem of language acquisition.
Highlights
The paper is based on Chomsky’s notion of Principle and Parameters
The results show that children remained consistent with non-null subject, head last principle while wh fronting was rarely observed in these utterances
Looking at the above data, in most of the sentences, subject is missing but sometimes these sentences are imperative for instance in sentence mama panee chayee, bahar jana hey and mama khana dein, which allow null subject as in English
Summary
According to him there are two aspects of language learning one is the grammar that is called as the universal grammar which is acquired naturally, the other is the one which is different for each language and needs to be learned by the language learner of every language. Children acquire language with the help of language acquisition device with the faculty that guides them in learning of grammar This grammar according to Chomsky (1993) is based on Universal Principle. 3) Null Subject Parameter (whether the language allows finite verbs to have a subject or not) (Radford, 2009, p. 13)
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