Linguistic theory has recently experienced a shift in its conceptual
approach from the formulation of descriptively adequate accounts of
languages to the definition of principles and parameters claimed to
reflect the initial structure of the language faculty, often termed
Universal Grammar (UG). Linguistic experience is said to have the effect
of guiding the child/linguist in fixing the unspecified parameters of U
G to determine the grammar of his/her language. The study of anaphora
has been of central concern as it addresses directly the innateness vs.
experience issue. On the one hand, it is a part of all natural languages
that is largely under- determined by the data, and must therefore be
included in the characterization of the initial state of the language
faculty. On the other hand, although the principles that govern anaphora
do not exhibit extreme variations across languages, a child/linguist
must solve language specific issues for his/her language based on
linguistic experience. This book examines a set of linguistic structures
from both a theoretical and an experimental perspective. The purpose is
to xv PREFACE xvi determine the roles of innateness and of experience in
the devel- opment of a child's theory of anaphora for his/her language.