Understanding Grammars through Diachronic Change

In this paper, I will vindicate the importance of syntactic change for the study of synchronic stages of natural languages, according to the following outline. First, I will analyze the relationship between the diachrony and synchrony of grammars, introducing some basic concepts: the notions of I-language/E-language, the role of Chomsky's (2005) three factors in language change, and some assumptions about language acquisition. I will briefly describe the different approaches to syntactic change adopted in generative accounts, as well as their assumptions and implications (Lightfoot, 1999, 2006; van Gelderen, 2004; Biberauer et al., 2010; Roberts, 2012). Finally, I will illustrate the convenience of introducing the diachronic dimension into the study of at least certain synchronic phenomena with the help of a practical example: variation in object case marking of several verbs in Modern Russian, namely, the verbs denoting avoidance and the verbs slusat'sja "obey" and dozidat'sja "expect," which show two object case-marking patterns, genitive case in standard varieties and accusative case in colloquial varieties. To do so, I will review previous descriptive and/or functionalist accounts on this or equivalent phenomena (Jakobson, 1984 [1936]; Clancy, 2006; Nesset and Kuznetsova, 2015a,b). Then, I will present a formal-but just synchronic-account, applying Sigurdsson (2011) hypothesis on the expression of morphological case to this phenomenon. Finally, I will show that a formal account including the diachronic dimension is superior (i.e., more explanative) than purely synchronic accounts.The research for this paper has been made possible by the grants from the Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness FFI2014-57260-P and FFI2014-53675-P. Support given by the research group on linguistics (UFI11/14) at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and the research group on historical linguistics (IT698-13) funded by the Basque Government is also gratefully acknowledged