The twelve contributions in this volume all focus on the question of whether developing grammars contain, at each stage of language acquisition, the full range of functional categories such as INFL, AGR, or COMP. The evidence examined is the placement of verbs, especially in verb-second constructions. Since the position of verbal elements depends on the finiteness distinction (the presence of agreement and tense markings), the development of these phenomena is studied as well.

other aspects of developing grammars. And this is, indeed, what the contributions to this volume do. Parameterization of functional categories may, however, be understood in different ways, even if one shares the dual assumptions that substantive elements (verbs, nouns, etc. ) are present in all grammars and that X-bar principles are part of the grammatical knowledge available to the child prior to language-specific learning processes. From these assumptions it follows that the child should, from early on, be able to construct projections on the basis of these elements. The role of functional...