The Four Fundamental Questions, What properties are universal? What properties vary? Which differences are systematic? What do answers tell us about the human mind?, Chomsky's Core Questions, What does Jones know when he knows a language? How did Jones acquire this knowledge?, The Explanatory Ratio, Phenomena analyzed over theoretical assumptions. Minimalism reduces assumptions; FGT increases phenomena from more languages., Chomskyan Universal, The initial state—innate biases children bring to learning any language., Greenbergian Universal, Observable patterns that recur across genetically unrelated languages (e.g., SOV languages tend to be postpositional)., Verb-Object Constraint (VOC), Verbs combine with their objects to form a unit that excludes the subject. Seen in VP ellipsis: "John will read the book... and Mary will ___ too.", Edo, A Nigerian language with Subject-Auxiliary-Verb-Object word order, supporting the VOC., Japanese, A language with Subject-Object-Verb word order where the object is still adjacent to the verb, supporting the VOC., Mohawk, A polysynthetic language showing Island Effects (Complex NP Island, Adjunct Island), proving these constraints are universal., The "Middle Way" Methodology, Baker's solution: intermediate depth on an intermediate number of languages—balancing deep knowledge of few languages vs. shallow knowledge of many., Functionalist View, Syntax is grammaticalized pragmatics. Explanation is external—language is shaped by communication needs., Chomskyan/FGT View, Syntax generates structures; pragmatics assigns uses. Explanation is internal—patterns follow from grammatical principles., Key Data Sources for FGT, Targeted elicitation, naturally occurring narratives, and speaker judgments from understudied languages, кітабым, Possession appears as a suffix on the noun, not a separate word. The universal: nouns combine with possessive markers to form a unit..

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