ABSTRACT
For more than a decade generativists views the linguistic genotype or 'Universal Grammar' (UG) as consisting of principles and a set of option-points or parameters. The author discusses one of the most tantalizing topics in the current theatre of research, the V2 phenomenon. He shows that the loss of this phenomenon in the history of English suggests that parameter setting is not a simple matter and that substantial ideas are needed about how parameters come to be set. When UG consists of principles and parameters, then one needs a distinct type of theorizing to connect more directly with acquisition, dealing with what it takes to set parameters. The author discusses that the triggering of the V-to-I operation has provided some relevant suggestions. He exclaims that one can learn much about this from figuring out the conditions under which a parameter comes to be set differently at some historical stage in a language's development.
