ABSTRACT
Word order variation is one area of parametric syntax that has been treated with most significant results. On the biological view of grammar, the observed facts of a given language are in part attributed to nature and in part to nurture. The most interesting problem centers around a class of postverbal structures whose distribution complicates an otherwise straightforward description of Chinese word order and phrase structure within the standard X' theory. The structure of verbal complementation constitutes an exception to the otherwise general requirement that Chinese is head-final at every level of phrasal expansion. L. Travis therefore proposed that the default word order of Chinese is head-final, except as required by theta theory, and that theta role assignment is from left to right. Travis's theory accounts for the postverbal complements in quite nicely, because these complements are indeed those that are theta-marked whether or not, according to standard assumptions, they need Case.
