Formal approaches to bi- and multilingual grammars rely on two important claims: (i) the grammatical architecture should be able to deal with mono- and bi-/multilingual data without any specific constraints for the latter, (ii) features play a pivotal role in accounting for patterns across and within grammars. In the present paper, it is argued that an exoskeletal approach to grammar, which clearly distinguishes between the underlying syntactic features and their morphophonological realizations (exponents), offers an ideal tool to analyze data from bi- and multilingual speakers. Specifically, it is shown that this framework can subsume the specific mechanism of Feature Reassembly developed by Donna Lardiere since the late 1990’s. Three case studies involving different languages and language combinations are offered in support of this claim, demonstrating how an exoskeletal approach can be employed without any additional constraints or mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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特征和指数的重要性

双语和多语语法的正式方法依赖于两个重要的主张：（i）语法架构应该能够处理单语和双语/多语数据，而对后者没有任何特定限制，（ii）特征起着关键作用解释语法之间和内部的模式。在本文中，人们认为语法的外骨骼方法清楚地区分了潜在的句法特征及其形态语音实现（指数），为分析双语和多语说话者的数据提供了理想的工具。具体来说，该框架可以包含 Donna Lardiere 自 1990 年代末以来开发的特征重组的特定机制。提供了涉及不同语言和语言组合的三个案例研究来支持这一主张，展示了如何在没有任何额外约束或机制的情况下采用外骨骼方法。