Variation, acquisition and change

Humans are seemingly unique in the animal kingdom in that we have language; systems enabling communication about any topic, be it past, present or future. In fact, humans are not limited to one language but can acquire several under the right conditions. Although undoubtedly a cultural object, language is also a fundamental part of the mind/brain of a human being, the constitution of which we refer to as a mental grammar. Changes in states of linguistic knowledge, whether in development (acquisition), over the lifespan or across generations (change) examined across diverse populations and language combinations (variation), provide crucial insights about the organization of mental grammars. This volume, entitled Variation, Acquisition and Change, brings together research on language acquisition in different populations, language change in various languages, and linguistic variation from an empirical and a theoretical perspective. The chapters illuminate these issues from a range of different methodological, empirical, and theoretical perspectives. Importantly, many chapters also combine two or three of the themes, illustrating that they are linked and that such combinations increase our understanding of a given linguistic phenomenon.