{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.036935704514363885, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0013679890560875513, 'mean_word_length': 5.9714285714285715, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
`Units of comparison' across languages, across time

Lardiere's keynote article adverts to a succession of `units of comparison' that have been employed in the study of cross-linguistic differences, including mid-twentieth-century structural patterns, generative grammar's parameters, and (within contemporary Minimalism) features. This commentary expands on the idea of units of cross-linguistic comparison, first by developing Lardiere's observations about recent scholarship and, second, by identifying some earlier reflexes of the notion. I close by suggesting that thinking about `units of comparison' across time prepares us to better appreciate a feature-based conceptualization of L2 acquisition, and its likely trajectory.