The Activity Condition as a Microparameter

Abstract

Using data from agreement in three Algonquian languages (Ojibwe, Cheyenne, and Plains Cree), this squib shows that effects typically attributed to Chomsky’s ( 2000 , 2001 ) Activity Condition (AC) can vary not only across languages, as in Baker’s (2008b) macroparametric proposal, but within a language as well. AC effects are thus another instance in which an apparent macroparameter turns out, on closer inspection, to be a microparameter instead, as in prominent cases such as the pro-drop parameter and the polysynthesis parameter ( Kayne 2005 , Baker 2008a ).