Jamal Ouhalla(1991). Functional Categories and Parametric Variation. published by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London.
Brief introduction:
In the Principles and Parameters framework the idea that functional categories play a significant role in the grammar has for many years been one of the fundamental premises. However, only recently has a serious attempt been made to investigate the role of functional categories in determining language variation (cf. Fukui and Speas (1986), Baker (1988), Chomsky (1988), Ouhalla (1988c), and Pollock (1989)). Among the consequences of this attempt is a growing awareness among linguists that language variation is probably determined by functional categories. Thus the research programme carried out in this book is intended to shed light on the nature of the parameters responsible for certain major aspects of linguistic variation. It is argued that linguistic differences involving substantive elements are determined by differences in the properties of functional categories.
Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 The X-bar status of the inflectional elements and the clause structure
Chapter 3 On the nature of some word order parameters
Chapter 4 The structure of noun phrases and word order variation
