little v and parametric variation

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.