ABSTRACT
The main aim of this chapter is to show that some of the well known typological word order differences can be accounted for in a principled way in terms of minimal parameteric differences involving the lexical properties of certain functional categories. It is argued that any attempt to classify languages along typological lines should take into consideration the properties of functional categories, rather than those of substantives. The surface order of substantives is shown to be determined by the order of functional categories, which is in turn determined by their c-selectional properties. The word order differences discussed concern the order of the subject in relation to the verb (the SVO/VSO distinction), and the order of the verb in relation to the negation elements. The analyses proposed rely crucially on the results of the previous chapter in that they assume that each of the inflectional elements heads its own X-bar projection in the clause structure. In so far as these analyses are successful in explaining the mechanisms responsible for the word order variations discussed, the results can legitimately be understood as additional evidence for the X-bar status of the inflectional elements.
