Theoretical Comparative Syntax brings together for the first time, significant essays and articles by Naoki Fukui, exploring various topics in the areas of syntactic theory and comparative syntax. The articles have a special focus on the typological differences between English (-type languages) and Japanese (-type languages) and abstract parameters that derive them. Linguistic universals are considered in the light of cross-linguistic variation and typological (parametric) differences are investigated from the viewpoint of universal principles.

The unifying theme of this volume is the nature and structure of invariant principles and parameters (variables) and how they interact to give principled accounts to a variety of seemingly unrelated differences between English and Japanese. These two types of languages provide an ideal testing ground for the principles and their interactions with the parameters since the languages exhibit diverse superficial differences in virtually every aspect of their linguistic structures.