Little v and parametric variation

Abstract

Much current work assumes that “little v” (henceforth v) is a universal functional category directly involved in the building of predicates. As a functional category, one would expect v to be the locus of parametric variation, as predicted by Hagit Borer’s (1984) original hypothesis. Some analyses have shown that v is involved in parametric variation concerning Case (Legate 2008) and probably Object Shift (Chomsky 2001). In this article, we argue that v is also involved in other forms of cross-linguistic variation, thus extending parameter theory in some unexpected directions. In particular, we argue that v is involved in three different features of cross-linguistic variation: the order of verb and complements, their prosodic structure and the expression of focus/background articulation.

Our data come from a code-switching variety called Esplugish, part and parcel of the I-language of a community of German/Spanish bilinguals. In Esplugish, as in other code-switching varieties, it is possible to switch between v (L1) and its complement VP/RootP (L2). Surprisingly, we find that the grammatical properties of the VP/RootP are those of L1 and not those of L2, a fact that we account for by arguing that the source of those properties is the v.