Comparative Minimalist Grammar

Although there are various integrated studies including 'linguistics' and 'language learning', it is very difficult to find studies exactly setting 'parametric variations between English and Turkish' through the MP, analyzing a satisfactory number of grammatical structures and identifying them as structures requiring 'grammatical learning' or 'lexical learning' as to the parametric variations set for these languages. In this particular study, we analyze English, an Indo-European language, and Turkish, a Uralic-Altaic language in terms of universal principles and parameters revised by the Minimalist Program. We analyze the phrasal and clausal structures in both languages comparatively and contrastively in order to identify the parametric variations between the two languages. We identify and describe the parametric variations or similarities in the derivations severally for almost each phrasal structure analyzed. Therefore, this study is not only important for the linguists or grammarians since it introduces comparative and contrastive cross-linguistic data but also significant for syllabus designers since it may help them to design a Turkish competence based English syllabus.