Constantin Freitag **Verb-second as a reconstruction phenomenon**

# **studia grammatica 86**

Herausgegeben von Manfred Bierwisch, Hans-Martin Gärtner und Manfred Krifka

unter Mitwirkung von Regine Eckardt (Konstanz) und Paul Kiparsky (Stanford) Constantin Freitag

# **Verb-second as a reconstruction phenomenon**

Evidence from grammar and processing

Free access to the e-book version of this publication was made possible by the 39 academic libraries that supported the open access transformation project in German Linguistics.

ISBN 978-3-11-072493-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-072501-8 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-072511-7 ISSN 0081-6469 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725018

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Dieses Buch ist meiner Familie gewidmet – dem Teil, den ich schon seit einer ganzen Weile kenne und dem, den ich erst kürzlich gefunden habe.

### **Preface**

This book is a condensed version of my doctoral dissertation which I defended in April 2019 at the Department of Linguistics of the University of Konstanz. The dissertation resulted from the AThEME-project (Advancing the European Multilingual Experience). This project has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 613465.

I am deeply indebted to my supervisor Josef Bayer who committed a great idea to me which laid the foundation of this work and who also supported me thoroughly all along the way to its completion. I am also very grateful that Janet Grijzenhout and Caroline Heycock agreed to be part of my dissertation committee. Without their engagement, feedback, and wit my graduation could not have become such an enjoyment as it has been. I also owe a lot to Sophie Repp for her long-time support and the opportunity to finish my studies in Cologne.

For countless, laughter, discussions, and suggestions, I want to thank my colleagues Yvonne Viesel, Anna Czypionka, and Laura Dörre who made the time in Konstanz unforgettable. Likewise I want to thank my Köln crowd Marlijn Meijer, Katharina Schaebbicke and Max Bonke for the very enjoyable time there.

I am also much obliged to Anne Temme for her stamina and all the effort that she put into the design and the material for Experiment 5.

Thanks to Kathi Fraser, Nathalie Scherf, Anne, Laura, and Yvi for helping me to find English translations for those weird German examples and proofreading the manuscript.

Furthermore, thanks to the people of the linguistic departments and the psycholinguistics labs in Konstanz and Köln, all participants of the experiments, the AThEME-team, Andrea Padovan, Andreas Trotzke, Kleanthes Grohmann, Volker Struckmeier, Tom Roeper, Horst Lohnstein, Lyn Frazier, Hans-Martin Gärtner, Eva Wittenberg, Sten Vikner, Katrine Rosendal Carstensen, Andreas Haida, Halldór Sigurdsson, Thórhallur Eythórsson, Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson, Ingunn Hreinberg Indriðadóttir, Oliver Bott und Fabian Schlotterbeck.

Finally, this work would not have appeared in the Studia Grammatica series without the good will and the commitment of two admirable linguists. I have to thank again Josef Bayer who *lobbied* for me and never let this go out of sight, and Manfred Bierwisch who offered me this opportunity and intensively supported this publication. I am deeply grateful to both of you.

Berlin, 14 June 2021

### **Contents**

**Preface**|**IX**

**List of Tables**|**XV**

**List of Figures**|**XIX**

**Abbreviations**|**XXI**

**1 Introduction**|**1**

### Part I: **The grammatical perspective on V2-movement**

3.1.1 Introduction|**65**

### Part II: **The role of V2-movement in sentence processing**

### **5 Processing of German clauses**|**150**

### **6 Experimental investigations of the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis**|**172**

**7 Peculiarities of processing V2-clauses**|**237**

### **Bibliography**|**281**

**Index**|**299**

## **List of Tables**

## **List of Figures**

### **Abbreviations**

### **1 Introduction**

*What you see is not what you get*, this slogan summarizes the central message that runs through this book. It refers to catchphrases used in computing to distinguish different text-editing systems. Two concepts are frequently opposed. Editors that directly display the final output, like MS-Word, are so-called *what you see is what you get*-editors. Other systems, like LaTeX, require the user to specify the semantic structure and properties of the content by instructions in a markup language. The final output is only perceivable after compiling the code, i. e. the visual feedback of the editor and the printer output may differ significantly. Consequently, these systems are called *what you get is what you mean*-editors. What is the connection to this book? The core of this work is a hypothesis stating that the surface position of the finite verb in verb second (V2) clauses (*what you see*) is not the position in which the finite verb is interpreted (*what you get*). It is now commonly accepted among linguists that the V2-order is a derived order stemming from a transformation of the V-final base order. To my knowledge, Josef Bayer was the first one to observe that finite verbs that appear in the second position of the clause must be interpreted in their clause-final base position in order to comply with well-accepted principles of grammar. He also pointed out that this reconstruction of the finite verb into its base position should be reflected in on-line sentence comprehension. In the tradition of generative grammar such a discrepancy between surface position and underlying interpretation appears very commonly. In the realm of on-line processing, however, this assumption becomes highly significant. Not so much because of the general idea that an element is (re-)interpreted at a distance – a mechanism which is well-accepted for nominal elements in so-called *filler-gap dependencies* – but because the deviation from strict left-to-right processing involves the core element of the clause, the finite verb, which specifies the argument structure, event type, etc. It is hard to believe that the human language processor would not make use of such central information although it is available. This monograph presents a critical investigation of this *V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis* and the consequences for V2-structures. It focuses mainly on German but connections to other V2-languages are made throughout the argumentation. The investigations are carried out on two linguistic areas: grammar and sentence processing. Accordingly, the book is divided into two major parts. In the following, I give a brief outlook of the content of the individual chapters.

Chapter 2 provides the general background for the investigation of the V2 phenomenon by illustrating its three main properties: First, V2-order constitutes a movement dependency between the base position of the verb and the V2-position. Second, V2-movement applies exceptionless, i. e. it cannot be suspended. Third, V2-movement targets one specific position in the left periphery of the clause. The chapter closes with a brief summary of the most important analyses of the V2 phenomenon.

Chapter 3 introduces the basic assumption of what builds the core of this publication, i. e. the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis. It states that V2-movement targets only the finiteness features of the finite verb, which are represented by inflectional affixes. The lexical part of the verb only moves along because the affixes cannot move on their own. As a consequence, the lexical part has to be reconstructed into its clause-final base position where it is interpreted. Two groups of evidence are presented in support of the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis: First, I show that the V2-position is systematically filled with surface elements which must not be interpreted and second, I present evidence which indicates that the finite verb has to be interpreted in its base position.

Chapter 4 provides the general background for the experimental investigations by introducing the basic properties of on-line language comprehension with a focus on the syntactic domain. I argue that deviation from strictly incremental processing, as assumed by the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis, occurs regularly and results in one of two different processing strategies: anticipatory analysis with potential subsequent repairs, or delayed processing. A comparison with wellestablished manifestations of these two strategies indicates that V2-clauses adhere to delayed processing, as assumed under the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis.

Chapter 5 provides more specific background for the experimental investigation by reviewing previous findings regarding the processing of the core argument structure in German sentences. Additionally, I review on-line processing experiments on thematic structure, attachment ambiguities and scope computing in German the results of which suggest that verb-related effects only appear at the clause-final position, as predicted by the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis.

Chapter 6 presents four self-paced reading experiments that test predictions of the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis concerning on-line sentence processing. The experiments use three different phenomena, NPI-licensing, infinitive selection and thematic-role assignment, to detect the temporal profile of the processing influence of the V2-element. Grammaticality contrasts that are dependent on the interpretation of the finite verb in V2-position show up at the reconstruction site of the verb conforming to the predictions of the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis.

In Chapter 7, I examine three details of the reconstruction process: First, the special status of subject-initial V2-clauses might be attributable to a more efficient processing route. Second, I argue that verb reconstruction is realized by inserting incoming units directly before the verb, instead of cascadically lowering the verb. Third, I argue that once unambiguous cues for the clause-final base position

are encountered, the parse is completed and the core meaning cannot be altered again, as evidenced by restrictions on extraposition.

Chapter 8 summarizes the findings of this contribution. The summary also provides conclusions and open questions for the individual parts and the monograph as a whole.

Additionally, this publication is accompanied by an online appendix that contains supplementary material to the psycholinguistic experiments reported here. There you will find: first, all items and instruction texts, second, the experiment scripts and all stimuli required to replicate the experiments, and third, the results and the scripts used for statistical analysis.

Part I: **The grammatical perspective on V2-movement**

## **2 The Syntax of V2**

The basis of the verb second phenomenon can be informally described as in (1).

### (1) **Description of the verbs second linearization:**

In V2-clauses, the finite verb occupies the second position of the clause.

Obviously, the situation is a little more complicated. The V2-phenomenon can be divided into three core issues: The position of the finite verb, specifying the preverbal element(s) and explaining its root character. The first two issues will be addressed in this chapter. The third one can only be touched because it is a complex topic on its own and not central to the issues in the following chapters of this monograph.

The first section will discuss the core phenomenon and also some cases in which the V2-requirement conflicts with other areas of the grammar. Section 2.2 shows that, due to discourse-pragmatic reasons, sentences may actually show reduced or extended V2-structures. The data in the first two sections is presented with as little theoretical assumptions as possible because these are the empirical observations that must be covered by all syntactic theories. Only in Section 2.3 will I discuss analyses of the generative grammar tradition and highlight the explanatory benefit of the respective accounts.

### **2.1 Observations: The facts about V2**

In this section, I present the basic observations regarding word order regularities in German, representative for V2-languages in general. This is followed by more elaborate discussion of cases in which finite verbs cannot move into the V2-position (Section 2.1.3) and elements that cannot precede the finite verb in V2 clauses (Section 2.1.4). The discussion will show that the regularities of V2 are never suspended but may conflict with other grammatical restrictions.

### **2.1.1 The core cases: V2, V1 and V-final**

V2-order can be best illustrated with declarative and *wh*-interrogative clauses, as in (2) and (3). Either one of the clausal constituents may precede the finite verb, such as the subject in (2a), the object in (2b), or the adverb in (2c). The same holds for the corresponding *wh*-interrogatives in (3).

	- a. Der the Junge boy hat has gestern yesterday den the Kuchen cake gegessen. eaten 'The boy has eaten the cake yesterday.'
	- b. Den the Kuchen cake hat has der the Junge boy gestern yesterday gegessen. eaten 'The boy has eaten the cake yesterday.'
	- c. Gestern yesterday hat has der the Junge boy den the Kuchen cake gegessen. eaten 'Yesterday, the boy has eaten the cake.'
	- a. Was what hat has der the Junge boy gestern yesterday gegessen? eaten 'What did the boy eat yesterday?'
	- b. Wer who hat has gestern yesterday den the Kuchen cake gegessen? eaten 'Who ate the cake yesterday?'
	- c. Wann when hat has der the Junge boy den the Kuchen cake gegessen? eaten 'When did the boy eat the cake?'

Two other core sentence types, polar interrogative and imperative rather show V1 patterns with the finite verb in sentence-initial position, as in (4) and (5).¹

	- a. Hat has der the Junge boy gestern yesterday den the Kuchen cake gegessen? eaten 'Did the boy eat the cake yesterday?'
	- b. # Der the Junge boy hat has gestern yesterday den the Kuchen cake gegessen? eaten
	- c. # Gestern yesterday hat has der the Junge boy den the Kuchen cake gegessen? eaten

**1** The sentences in (4b–4d) are syntactically well-formed strings and may even receive an interrogative interpretation. However, these are so-called *declarative questions* that have to be differentiated from true polar interrogatives because they require a very specific utterance context (see Gunlogson 2002, Truckenbrodt 2006a: 259).

	- a. Iss eat heute today den the Kuchen! cake 'Eat the cake today!'
	- b. \* Den the Kuchen cake iss eat heute! today
	- c. \* Heute today iss eat den the Kuchen! cake

In subordinate clauses, the finite verb appears only in the clause-final position and not in the corresponding V2/V1-positions, as illustrated in (6).²

	- b. Es It ist is klar, clear was what 〈\*hat〉 has der the Junge boy gestern yesterday gegessen eaten 〈hat〉. has 'It is clear what the boy ate yesterday.'
	- c. Es it ist is unklar, unclear ob whether 〈\*hat〉 has der the Junge boy 〈\*hat〉 has gestern yesterday den the Kuchen cake gegessen eaten 〈hat〉. has

'It is unclear whether the boy ate the cake yesterday.'

This short descriptive sample suffices to conclude that the verb position in German (and other V2-languages) is clause-type specific. We observe a major difference between main and subordinate clauses: In subordinate clauses, the finite verb appears uniformly in the clause-final position. In main clauses, the verb appears always in the left periphery, either in first or second position. In German linguistics, these two verb positions are taken to be the anchor points for a descriptive model that divides the sentences into three fields (Drach 1937): The slot preceding the finite verb in V1/V2-clauses is called the *prefield*, the slot between the finite

**2** I will exclude the discussion of embedded V2-clauses because that phenomenon is still discussed controversially and does, as far as I can see, not contribute anything relevant to the central objective of this investigation, the processing of V2. The interested reader is referred to Heycock (2006) and Freywald (2014).

**10** | 2 The Syntax of V2

verb and the non-finite verbs in V1/V2-clauses is called the *middle field*, and the slot following the right-peripheral verbal element in main and embedded clauses is called the *postfield*. In the following, I will refer to these fields descriptively in order to avoid specific syntactic analysis, before discussing those in Section 2.3.

### **2.1.2 The prefield: What precedes the finite verb?**

Above, we have already seen that the second position is not defined in terms of morphological words but in terms of syntactic constituents, which is also illustrated in (8). The object precedes the finite verb, irrespective of its length.

(8) [Den the (mit with Schkolade chocolate überzogenen) covered Kuchen] cake hat has der the Junge boy gestern yesterday gegessen. eaten 'The boy ate the (with chocolate covered) cake yesterday.'

Consequently, also larger constituents such as VPs and subordinate clauses may occupy the prefield, as is shown in (9).

	- b. [Weil because er he Hunger hunger hatte] had hat has der the Junge boy gestern yesterday den the Kuchen cake gegessen. eaten

'The boy ate the cake yesterday because he was hungry.'

In Section 2.1.4, I will discuss restrictions on prefield elements. Some specific forms of complex prefields are presented in Section 2.2.3.

### **2.1.3 Restrictions on V2-movement**

The most robust restriction on V2-movement is a corollary of the V2-generalization: Only finite verbs move, non-finite verbs do not. This restriction appears to be

inviolable. Even though German exhibits a range of non-finite matrix clause constructions, as discussed in Gärtner (2013), none of these show a non-finite verb in V2-position. Therefore we may conclude that being some kind of independent clause is not sufficient to trigger verb movement. A necessary requirement for V2-movement is finiteness.

Among the finite clauses, two different restrictions on V2-movement have been observed: An external restriction in which the finite verb is 'trapped' within the surface scope of a comparative operator and cannot be moved. Second, an internal restriction: Complex lexemes with more than one particle attached to the base exhibit a morphological structure that leads to a dilemmatic conflict of morphosyntactic well-formedness conditions under verb movement.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> External constraint: Configurational restrictions in scope taking comparative operators**

Haider (2010: 64–65) observed that verbs which are the target of an adverbial comparison operator cannot move out of the surface scope of such an operator. The verb *verdreifachen* 'triple' is perfectly acceptable as a finite verb in the V-final embedded clause in (10a), and as a participle in the main clause in (10b), irrespective of the presence of the comparative adverbial *mehr als* 'more than'. However, if the verb leaves the surface scope of the comparative operator the structure becomes ungrammatical, irrespective of whether the movement targets the V2-position, as in (10c), or the prefield as in (10d). Additionally, example (10e) shows that movement of the verb is not banned per se. If the comparative operator is topicalized together with the verb, the structure is completely acceptable. The same results are obtained for the equative operator *so gut wie* (*verdoppelt*) 'as much as (doubled)' (Haider 2010: 65).

(10) German

assess can c. Dann then verdreifachte tripled sich itself der the Verlust deficit (\*mehr more als) than verdreifachte (soweit insofar ich das beurteilen kann).

I that assess can

A cross-lingustic comparison shows that such comparative structures are movement-phobic also in other, non-V2 languages. The English and Italian paradigms in (11) and (12), respectively, show exactly the same pattern as their German equivalents. As soon as the target of comparison is not within the scope domain of the operator in the surface form, the structure is ungrammatical. Example (11a) shows that a verb like *triple* is fine in the surface scope of an operator like *more than*. (11b) shows that a verb may be fronted, but fronting out of the operator scope in (11c) is deviant.

	- a. The value (has) [far more than merely tripled].
	- b. (He said that the value would triple, and) tripled1 the value has indeed trippled1 within one week.
	- c. \* (He said that the value would more than triple, and) tripled1 the value has indeed [more than tripled1 ] within one week.

(Haider 2000b: 159, Haider 2010: 64)

Example (12a) presents a similar configuration with the Italian verb *triplicare* "triple" in the scope of a comparative operator. Destroying the surface scope relation results in unacceptability irrespective of whether the verb is fronted as in (12b) or the operator phrase is moved as in (12c).

	- a. Il the valore value si refl è is [molto much più more che than solo only triplicato]. tripled

Additional support for the assumption that this ban is specific to the comparative environment can be obtained from the inspection of comparative constructions involving non-verbal elements, as illustrated for adjectives in (13), for adverbials in (14), and for DPs³ in (15).

	- b. Betrunken1 drunk war was Christopher Christopher (\*mehr more als) than betrunken1 war.
	- c. [Mehr more als than betrunken]1 drunk war was Christopher Christopher betrunken1 war.

	- b. *Dann* Then *hat* has *Christopher* Christopher *offensichtlich* obviously *mehr* more *als* than *eine* one *\*Mütter/* mothers *Mutter.* mother
	- c. *Dann* then *hat* has *Christopher* Christopher *offensichtlich* obviously *mehr* more *Mütter* mothers *als* than *eine* one *(\*Mutter).* mother
	- d. *Mütter1* mothers *hat* has *Christopher* Christopher *offensichtlich* obviously *mehr* more *Mütter1 als* that *eine* one *Mutter.* mother 'Christopher has obviously more than one mother.'

**3** The comparison actually does not target the noun but the numeral. A variant exists that looks like a possible extraction case. However, the fronted noun must be in the plural, see (i.a). Example (i.b) shows that the plural noun cannot originate in the position following the numeral *eine* 'one'. Example (i.c) shows that the plural stems from a position directly following the comparator *mehr* 'more'. These comparative constructions seem to involve two instances of the lexeme mutter 'mother' of which maximally one can be spelled out, as illustrated in (i.d). Only the higher instance can be dislocated, the lower one has to remain in the operator scope even if it is not spelled out.

	- b. [Eine one Mutter]1 mother hat has Christopher Christopher offensichtlich obviously (\*mehr more als) than eine Mutter1 hat.
	- c. [Mehr more als than eine one Mutter]1 mother hat has Christopher Christopher offensichtlich obviously mehr als eine Mutter1 hat.

Thus, there seems to be a cross-categorial and cross-linguistic restriction on extracting the target of comparison out of the surface scope of the comparative operator. This restriction is arguably so strong that it cannot be violated, not even by a generalized movement operation such as V2-movement.

The following observation sheds some more light on this ban. I assume that the comparison operator is a focus-sensitive operator. The resulting configuration is therefore an *association with focus*-construction (see Section 3.3.1) in which the interpretation changes according to the focus-background structure, as illustrated in (16). The operator needs a focused constituent in its scope.

(16) a. Christopher Christopher hat has sich refl mehr more als than (*nur*) just [eín]foc one Auto car gekauft. bought (mindestens zwei)

'Christopher bought more than just óne car. (At least two.)'

b. Christopher Christopher hat has sich refl mehr more als that (*nur*) just [ein one Aúto]foc car gekauft. bought (Dieser Jaguar ist ein Stück Zeitgeschichte)

'Christopher bough more than just a cár. (This Jaguar is a piece of history.)'

The ban on movement, therefore, can be reduced to a requirement of surface focus/accent marking. To demonstrate this, let us first look at the derived/metaphorical

use of *mehr als* 'more than', as in (17). In (17a) the whole particle verb *anschreien* 'shout at' is in the surface scope of the operator. Hence, the alternatives to the predicate may include another predicate such as *schubsen* 'shove', as indicated in the continuation in (17a). In (17b), the verbal part is moved to the V2-position and only the particle remains in the surface scope position of the operator. Even though the verb meaning remains intact, the focus-sensitive operator operates on different semantic alternatives, as indicated by the continuations in (17b). A felicitous continuation can only refer to a more extreme alternative of a shouting event. An event of a different type, such as shoving, is excluded. This indicates that the surface element constitutes the basis for the computation of focus alternatives by the focus-sensitive operator *mehr als* 'more than'.

(17) a. Er he hat has ihn him *mehr* more *als* than (*nur*) just [án-geschrien]foc. at-shouted (Er he hat has ihn him mindestens at least geschubst) shoved

'He has more than (just) shouted at him. (He has at least shoved him.)'

b. Er he schreit shouts ihn him *mehr* more *als* than (*nur*) just [án]focschreit. at (Er he wird will ihn him #mindestens at least schubsen/ shove regelrecht downright zusammen-brüllen) together-shout

'He is more than (just) shouting at him. (He will #at least shove him/ downright shout him down.)'

Two predictions follow from the hypothesis that only the surface focus exponent is constitutive for focus-sensitive operators such as *mehr als* 'more than' to generate the relevant alternatives: First, the surface focus exponent must not be null. Second, a meaningful focus alternative to the surface focus exponent must exist. The first prediction is obviously borne out, as illustrated by examples (10)–(15) above. The consequences of the second prediction can be illustrated with idiomatic constructions such as the particle verb *anfangen* 'start' (lit. 'on-catch') in (18). If the whole verb occurs in the focus of the operator, as in (18a), the relevant alternatives depict events that are well beyond the starting point. If the verb is split up by V2-movement, as in (18b), the focus alternatives are computed only with respect to the particle. However, alternative particles do not lead to felicitous alternatives to the idiomatic meaning.

(18) a. Er He hat has *mehr* more *als* than (*nur*) just [án-gefangen]foc. on-catched (Er he ist is schon already beinahe almost fertig.) done

'He has more than just started. (He's already almost done.)'

b. ??/\* Er He fängt catched *mehr* more *als* than (*nur*) just [án]focfängt. on (#Er he wird will es it auch also beenden) finish

A similar observation can be made for the idiom *Süßholz raspeln* 'sweet-talk' (lit. 'rasp licorice') in (19). If the entire predicate complex is within the scope of the operator, as in (19a), the alternatives are generated with respect to the idiomatic meaning. In (19b), on the other hand, only the DP of the idiomatic predicate complex is within the surface scope of the operator. Hence, the focus alternatives range only over things that can be rasped, which do not constitute felicitous alternatives to the idiomatic meaning. Example (19c) shows that without the focussensitive operator *mehr als*, such predicates may be split by V2-movement without blocking the idiomatic meaning.

	- b. Er he raspelte rasped mehr more als that (nur) just [Süßholz]foc licorice raspelte. (#Er he hat has sich himself richtig actually an at sie her rangeschmissen.) at-thrown 'He rasped more than just licorice. (#He actually flinged himself at her.)'
	- c. Er he raspelte rasped (schon already den the ganzen whole Tag) day Süßholz licorice raspelte (um for die the alte old Dame lady zum to the Verkauf sale zu to bewegen). persuade

'He has been sweet-talking the whole day to persuade the old lady to sell.'

This discussion showed that the restriction on movement out of the surface scope of operators such as *mehr als* 'more than' is so general that it applies to all syntactic categories. Second, the restriction is not a general ban on movement: Movement of a part of the predicate, such as the verbal stem of the particle verb in (17b), is possible. Third, the restriction only excludes movement of the whole focus exponent or parts of a non-compositional element because no meaningful alternatives can be computed for empty elements or non-compositional parts. In essence, even though V2-movement is constrained by this restriction, it is not V2-specific.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Internal constraint: Morphological dilemmas of complex verbs**

Two different classes of *immobile verbs* can be distinguished in German (and Dutch). These are double-particle verbs and back-transformations. In contrast to the examples of the previous section, the constraint on movement arises from the internal (morphological) structure of the respective predicates. Both classes involve a *morphological* dilemma because the relevant verbs cannot be split up and cannot move as a whole (Haider 1993: 65).

In V2-contexts, German particle verbs split the verbal stem from the particle. The finite verbal part moves to the V2-position and the particle remains behind, as illustrated in (20).

	- a. … dass that du you uns uns ankündigst on.announce '… that you announce us'
	- b. Du you kündigst1 announce uns us an-t1 . on 'You announce us.'
	- c. \*Du you ankündigst1 on.announce uns us t1 .

There are a few particles, such as *vor* 'before' that combine productively with verbs, even with verbs which are already particle verbs. The result is a double particle verb with two adjacent particles, such as *vor-an-kündigen* 'pre-announce' in (21a). These verbs induce a dilemma in V2-environments: The verb cannot move alone, leaving behind both particles (21b), nor can any of the particles move with the verb (21c–21d), nor can both particles move with the verb (21e), nor can the V2-constraint be ignored and the verb remain in-situ (21f) (Haider 2010: 58–61).

(21) a. … wenn du uns vorankündigst.

> if you us pre-announce

'… if you pre-announce us.'

### **18** | 2 The Syntax of V2

(see Haider 2010: 60)

Haider (2010: 60–61) lists a number of other combinations to illustrate the productiveness of the pattern, see (22).

	- b. vor + anmelden → voranmelden 'preregister' (lit. 'pre-an-nounce')
	- c. um + einteilen → umeinteilen 'reorganize' (lit. 're-in-deal')

Haider (2010: 61) also includes examples (23a) and (23b) featuring the initial particle *mit* 'with'. Such examples are exceptional because *mit* is a rather free particle which is located in the right periphery of the middle field (see Bücker 2012: 209- 214 for a characterization).⁴ The exceptional status is exemplified in (24), showing that *mit* can easily separate from the particle verb without giving rise to this dilemma.

	- b. mit + ausdrucken → mitausdrucken 'print out jointly' (lit. 'with-outprint')
	- b. Andrea Andrea druckt prints mir for me das that bereits already mit-ausdruckt. with-out 'Andrea prints this already for me (jointly with her stuff).'

Moreover, *mit* 'with' may also attach to doubly prefixed verbs as shown in (25). As expected, the resulting complex is unproblematic in V-final position as in (25a), but results in the same dilemmatic situation in (25b) as the doubly prefixed verb alone. Additionally, *mit* must always be the leftmost particle in such constructions.⁵

(25) mit + voranmelden 'jointly preregister' (lit. 'with-pre-announce')

**4** Sebstian Bücking (p. c.) made me aware of this with his talk at the Universität zu Köln, 10 January 2018.

**5** If the meaning allows it, the particle *mit* may occur two times, as in (i), even though this construction is marked because the simpler form with only one *mit* would suffice in this case.

	- time

'Can you preregister for me too tomorrow? I don't have time.'

b.  I don't have time.'

I cannot think of a plausible reason why the movement of the finite verb stem should be constraint directly. An explanation of this immobility must rather focus on the clause-final position: Somehow it seems possible to strand one verbal particle alone, but not two particles together (Haider 2010). Clearly, this account remains rather descriptive, which, however, suffices for now.

The second class of verbs, *pseudo-compounds*, shows a very similar pattern (Freywald & Simon 2007).⁶ All of these lexemes have a verbal head, the rightmost constituent in German. The first constituent can be of various categories, as shown in (26). The examples illustrate that the verbal lexemes are derived from nominal forms that contained a deverbal head. This modified head is back-transformed⁷, which results in a complex verb.

(26) a. N+V

Gen+manipulation gene+manipulation → genmanipulieren gene.manipulate 'genetic engineering' → 'do genetic engineering'

b. V+V

Mäh+drescher mow+thresher → mähdreschen mow.thresh 'harvester' → 'use the harvester'

(i) *Wenn* if *du* you *eh* prt *schon* already *zum* to the *Kiosk* kiosk *gehst,* go *kannst* can *du* you *mir* me *dann* then *auch noch* also *was* something *mit-mitbringen?* with-with.bring 'If you are going to the kiosk anyway, could you bring also something for me?'

**6** An observation that dates back to Höhle (2018: 370–372).

**7** Freywald & Simon (2007) differentiate between *back-conversion* and back-transformation. The only difference is that in conversion no affix is added or removed.

c. A+V Erst+wähler first+voter → erstwählen first.vote 'first-time voter' → 'vote for the first time' d. P+V Zwischen+landung between+landing → zwischenlanden between.land 'stopover' → 'stop over' (Freywald & Simon 2007: 2–3)

However, as illustrated in (27), not all back-transformed verbs are immobile (Fortmann 2007).

	- b. Eberhardt Eberhardt handhabt hand+has Messer knive und and Gabel fork mit with einigem considerable Geschick. skill 'Eberhardt handles knive and fork with considerable skill.'
	- c. Man one schlussfolgert conclusion+deduce oft often das the Falsche. wrong 'One often reaches the wrong conclusion.'

Moreover, Freywald & Simon (2007) present results from a questionnaire study indicating that some of the alleged immobile verbs are not categorically refused by native speakers. Some of them are rated almost as good as the *unproblematic* clause-final variants. Additionally, the decision concerning the (non-)separability of the two constituents of the pseudo-compound seems to be influenced by the category of the first constituent. Prepositions, as in (26d), are more likely to be separated and remain in the clause-final bases position. This is not surprising, considering that the particles of most classical particle verbs are at least homophone variants of prepositions. Furthermore, Freywald & Simon (2007) report that their participants divide into two groups, one accepting back-transformations in V2-contexts and others do not. It seems plausible that the speaker community establishes an acceptance for some verbs, as the ones in (27), over time.⁸

(Fortmann 2007: 9)

**8** The verb *teilnehmen* 'partake' (lit. part+take) seems to be a case in point that most probably results from a back-transformation. Splitting the nominal part, as illustrated in (i), is completely unmarked.

Therefore, the immobility of pseudo-compounds can be reduced to the assumption that the lexical entry of the verbs in question is somewhat defective, which only surfaces when the speaker has to make a decision about separating the verb stem from the modification or not. It also appears possible that lexemes that are currently immobile become mobile in the future.

Comparable cases of immobility of the finite verb due to multiple particle prefixing and back-transformation are also observed in Dutch (Booij 1990, Koopman 1995). However, Vikner (2005) points out that immobile complex verbs are non-existent in Danish despite Danish being a V2-language. He argues that such immobility only occurs in OV-languages like Dutch and German. Vikner (2005) attributes this difference between VO and OV languages to the linearization differences of the resulting phrases. In German and Dutch, particle verbs and backtransformation exhibit a head-final structure, [prt≺V] and [N≺V], because the VP and noun composition is head-final. In Danish, noun composition is also head-final resulting in [N≺V]-structured back-transformations. Danish particle verbs, on the other hand, show a [V≺prt] pattern due to the VP being head-initial. Interestingly, however, double-particle verbs in Danish show a [prt≺prt≺V] order, which resembles the linearization of noun composition (including backtransformation) and distinguishes double-particle verbs formally from particle verbs. The head-final complexes, back-transformation and double-particle verbs therefore form an inseparable word that moves always as a whole. In V2-contexts, normal particle verbs in Danish split up but retain their relative order (V≺prt), in contrast to German and Dutch. In conclusion it seems that in OV-languages like German and Dutch, the uncertainty of the morphological status is caused by the form identity of the output of morphological and syntactic processes in these languages.⁹

In sum, internal constraints on V2-movement have been identified as conditions on the morphological form, which can be paraphrased as follows: V2 movement is not restricted but the outcome may violate constraints on the morphological representation. We have seen that back-transformations are not categorically excluded from V2-movement and may show each of the two options, movement as a complex or splitting up. Furthermore, it can be expected that the

(i) *Er* he *nahm* took *an* at *der* the *Veranstaltung* event *teilnahm.* part 'He partook in the event.'

**9** Following the structure building account of Haider (2012), modification of head-initial phrases is restricted to a single element whereas the modification of head-final phrases is basically unbounded. Multiple-particle verbs are therefore excluded in verb-initial languages.

status of back-transformed lexemes changes over time and that they "develop" unmarked mobility. The comparison with Dutch as another OV-language and Danish as an VO-type V2-language suggested that the OV-property is an important factor for the phenomenon of immobile verbs. In comparison to the generalized ban on movement in the comparative configuration, which was discussed in the previous section, the problems of this section are specifically tied to V2-movement: The separation of verbal parts and particles arises only under head movement. Movement of non-finite forms into the prefield are fine, as shown in (28).

	- b. Genmanipulieren do genetic engineering dürfen may wir we nur only wenige few Planzen plants genmanipulieren dürfen.

'We are allowed to do genetic engineering only with few plants.'

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Summary**

I presented two types of restrictions on verb movement, an external and an internal constraint. The external constraint is a generalized ban on moving elements out of a comparative construction if the result is an exponent that does allow the computation of meaningful focus alternatives. This restriction turned out to be not V2-specific because it applies to phrasal movement and head movement alike, applies to other syntactic categories apart from verbs, and is also observed in non-V2 languages. The internal constraint is a specific consequence of applying head movement to double-particle verbs and back-transformations. Such movement leads to separation of the verbal part, stranding the remaining part in the V-final base position. This (non-)separation may lead to conflicts of morphological requirements thereby rendering the output of the head movement unacceptable. Such conflicts seem only to arise in V2-languages of the OV-type like German and Dutch.

I conclude that V2-movement is generalized movement. In specific cases its application can conflict with well-formedness conditions of other grammatical areas. Crucially, however, V2-movement cannot be suspended in those cases. Instead speakers are forced to insert an auxiliary to avoid movement of the problematic element, as in (29b). In any case they can never use the finite verb in the clause-final base position of the matrix clause, as in (29c).

	- 'We modify this plant by genetic engineering'
	- b. Wir we haben have diese this Pflanze plant genmanipuliert genetic engineered haben. 'We modified this plant by genetic engineering'
	- c. \* Wir we diese this Pflanze plant genmanipulieren. genetic engineer 'We modify this plant by genetic engineering'

### **2.1.4 Restrictions on prefield elements**

Above, I stated that any phrasal element may occupy the prefield. This generalization has to be qualified in two ways. In this section, I will show that some phrasal elements may not occupy the prefield, which seems to be subject to crosslinguistic variation. Cases in which apparent non-phrasal elements occur in the prefield will discussed in Section 2.2.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Negation**

In German, negation is excluded from topicalization, as shown in (30a). It can only appear in the prefield as part of a larger constituent such as the VP, as in (30b).

(30) Christopher Christopher hat has das the Buch book nicht not gelesen. read

'Christopher hasn't read the book.'

'(Only) Christopher didn't read the book.'

Cross-lingustic comparison indicates that negation is not generally excluded from the sentence-initial position in V2-languages. In Swedish, negation can appear in preverbal position in declarative rejections, as in (31b), and in rejection questions, as in (32b). The difference in the felicity conditions between the unmarked position of the negation and the preverbal occurrence is far from trivial and the reader is referred to Seeliger (2015). Fronting of the negation is also possible in Icelandic, Norwegian, and Breton (Holmberg 2015: 350).

**24** | 2 The Syntax of V2

	- a. Han he kommer comes inte not till to mötet. the.meeting 'He isn't coming to the meeting.'
	- b. Inte Not kommer comes han he till to mötet. the.meeting 'He isn't coming to the meeting.'

(Seeliger 2015: 576)

	- a. Han He kommer comes inte not till to mötet? the.meeting 'Surely he isn't coming to the meeting?'
	- b. Inte Not kommer comes han he till to mötet? the.meeting 'Surely he isn't coming to the meeting?'

(Seeliger 2015: 576–577)

Zeijlstra (2013) discusses two constructions in Dutch in which the negation can be topicalized, as shown in (33).¹⁰

	- a. Ik I had had wel prt gezien seen dat that Jan Jan aankwam, arrived, maar but niet1 neg had had ik I niet1 gezien seen dat that Eddy vertrok.

Eddy left

'I did see that Jan arrived, but I didn't see that Eddy left.'

b. Níet neg moeten must in in de the lijst list worden be aangekruist crossed de the planten plants die that je you al already hébt.

have

'You must not mark the plants on the list that you already have.'

(Zeijlstra 2013: 893–894)

In O'odham (Papago), an OV-V2 language, the negation can also fill the prefield and precede the auxiliary, as in (34b). Interestingly, in contrast to German¹¹, the non-finite verb cannot be placed into the prefield and precede the negation, as in

**10** Thanks to Heiko Seeliger (p. c.) for pointing that out.

**11** An acceptable German equivalent is given in (i).

(34c), whereas example (34d) shows that fronting the verb is fine, without (crossing) the negation (Zepeda 1983: 8–9).¹²

	- a. ['I:da this 'o'odham] person 'o aux pi neg ñeok. speaking 'This person is/was not speaking.'
	- b. Pi neg 'o aux 'i:da this 'o'odham person ñeok. speaking 'This person is/was not speaking.'
	- c. \*Ñeok speaking 'o aux pi neg 'i:da this 'o'odham person . 'This person is/was not speaking.'
	- d. Ñeok speaking 'o aux 'i:da this 'o'odham. person 'This person is/was speaking.'

(Zepeda 1983: 8–9)

Three different explanations could cover these cross-linguistic differences: First, negation might be phrasal in some languages, such as Swedish and O'odham, whereas it is non-phrasal in others, such as German. This would allow to maintain the restriction that only phrasal elements occur in the prefield. Second, we might assume that negation is phrasal in all languages and there are independent reasons that restrict negation from being topicalized in German. Third, we might assume that negation is non-phrasal in all languages but there is a mechanism that exceptionally allows topicalization of these elements in languages such as Swedish and O'odham. I leave this open to future research but will come back to this issue in the summary below.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Discourse particles**

Discourse particles in German cannot appear in the prefield (Zimmermann 2011: 2029, Bayer & Struckmeier 2017b: 7). This is illustrated for the discourse particles

(i) *Gesprochen1* spoken *hat* has *diese* this *Person* person *nicht* not *gesprochen1 .* 'This person has not spoken.'

**12** It seems that the negation *pi* in O'odham has its base position right-adjacent to the second position auxiliary. Additionally, there seems to be a requirement that the negation must precede their target (see Zepeda 1983).

*wohl* and *doch* in (35a) and (35b). In contrast to negation, discourse particles do not move to the prefield as part of a larger unit either, as shown in (36).

	- a. \* Wohl prt hat has Christopher Christopher wohl seinem his Vater father zugehört. to-listen
	- b. \* Doch prt hat has Christopher Christopher doch seinem his Vater father zugehört. to-listen
	- b. \* [Wohl/ prt Doch prt seinem his Vater father zugehört] to-listen hat has Christopher Christopher wohl/doch seinem Vater zugehört.

Many discourse particles have homophonous counterparts that indeed may occupy the sentence-initial position, as illustrated by the contrast of adverbial *vielleicht* 'perhaps' in (37) and the discourse particle in (38).

	- a. Renate Renate ist is vielleicht perhaps in in die the Oper opera gegangen gone 'Perhaps, Renate went to the opera.'
	- b. Vielleicht perhaps ist is Renate Renate in in die the Oper opera gegangen. gone 'Perhaps, Renate went to the opera.'

(Bayer & Struckmeier 2017b: 7, fn. 5)

	- a. Díe she ist is vielleicht vielleicht eingebildet! arrogant 'Boy, is shé arrogant!'
	- b. \* Vielleicht vielleicht ist is díe she eingebildet! arrogant

(Bayer & Struckmeier 2017b: 7, fn. 5)

Zimmermann (2011: 2029) proposes that German discourse particles cannot appear in the prefield position because they cannot bear stress. This may explain why discourse particles do not appear in the prefield on their own but not why they cannot move as part of a larger phrase, as in (36). Additionally, in questions, discourse particles may be fronted along with the *wh*-expression, as in (39) (see Bayer & Trotzke 2015).

	- b. Wie bloß konnte das passieren?

Furthermore, as Zimmermann (2011: 2031-2033) points out, discourse particles may appear in the left periphery in other languages, such as the Swedish particles *nog* and *visst* in (40) (see Scherf 2017).

(40) Swedish Nog/ nog Visst visst läser reads Peter Peter tidningen newspaper.def i in köket. kitchen.def 'Peter reads the newspaper in the kitchen.' (Scherf 2017: 80)

In sum, discourse particles are heavily restricted in their occurrence in the prefield. A possible explanation has been their inability to bear stress. Concerning the cross-linguistic variation it seems not clear if their distribution is due to their phrase structural status, i. e. being a head vs. a phrase.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Verbal particles**

It is a well-known fact about German and Dutch that particle verbs may split up in V2-environments, moving the finite verb stem into the V2-position and leaving the particle behind, as shown in (41a) vs. (41b). Fronting the particle verb as a whole, as in (41c), is unproblematic, whereas fronting only the particle, as in (41d), is degraded.

	- b. Der the Vater father liest reads das the Buch book vorliest. out 'The father reads out the book.'
	- c. Vorgelesen2 read out hat1 has der the Vater father das the Buch book vorgelesen2 hat1 . 'The father read out the book.'

### **28** | 2 The Syntax of V2

d. \* Vor2 out hat1 has der the Vater father das the Buch book vor2gelesen read hat1 .

However, as has been noted by Frey (2004) and discussed by Trotzke & Quaglia (2016) and Trotzke & Wittenberg (2017), some particle verbs allow an emphatic topicalization of the particle, as shown in (42).

	- b. Áuf prt(open) hat has Otto Otto die the Türe door gemacht. made 'Otto opened the door.' (Frey 2004: 32)

Trotzke & Quaglia (2016) argue that the ability to contrast the fronted particle with an alternative particle plays an important role in understanding this restriction.¹³ In other words, it seems that it is not the syntactic properties that condition the fronting of the verbal particles but the pragmatic properties that are related to the prefield position.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Weak pronouns and expletives**

In German, the prefield can be filled by a semantically empty expletive *es* 'there', which is form identical to the neuter pronoun *es* 'it'. The paradigm in (43) illustrates that the expletive can only appear in sentence-initial position, as in (43a), but not in the middle field, i. e. to the right of the V2-position, as in (43b–43d), or after the complementizer, as in (43e), (den Besten 1983: 66–69, Tomaselli 1986, Speyer 2009).

	- b. Nur only eine one Konstituente constituent kann can (\*es) expl vor before dem the finiten finite Verb verb stehen. stand 'Only one constituent may appear in front of the finite verb.'
	- c. Wo where kann can (\*es) expl nur only eine one Konstituente constituent stehen? stand 'Where does only one constituent may appear?'

**13** See also the discussion of examples (17b) and (18b) above.

'… that only one constituent may appear in front of the finite verb.'

The neuter pronoun *es* 'it' frequently appears in the prefield if it represents the subject of the main clause verb, irrespective of whether it is a non-referring element such as the subject of *weather*-verbs in (44) or a referential subject as in (45). The variants in (44b) and (45b) illustrate that these elements may appear in the middle field as well, in contrast to the prefield expletive.

	- b. Gestern yesterday hat has es it geschneit. snowed 'Yesterday, it snowed.'
	- b. Auf on dem the Tisch table hat has es it gelegen. laid 'It laid on the table.'

However, it has been observed that the pronoun *es* may not appear in the prefield if it represents an object, as in (46a), whereas it is fine in the middle field as in (46b) (Travis 1991: 359).

(46) Gestern habe ich ein Buch gekauft.

'Yesterday, I bought a book.'

Closer inspection, however, reveals that there are cases, such as (47), where object-*es* occurring in the prefield is perfectly acceptable (see Lenerz 1994: 162, Frey 2006b, Meinunger 2007).

	- b. (Wo where kommt comes das the Buch book her?) from Es it muss must doch prt jemand someone dahin there gelegt put haben.

have

'(Where did this book come from?) Someone must have put it there.' (Meinunger 2007: 555–557)

That the occurrences of *es* are not cases of expletive prefield-*es* can easily be diagnosed by looking at the subordinate clause variants of (47b): As indicated in (48a), the pronoun cannot be left out in the middle field. Moreover, placing the object-*es* after the subject, as in (48b), results in markedness. I suspect that, in order to form a felicitous answer, the pronoun must receive stress, which it cannot. Replacing it by a stressed DP, as in (48c) is fine again.

	- a. Ich I vermute, suppose dass that \*(es) it jemand somebody dort there verloren lost hat. has 'Is suppose that somebody has lost it there.'
	- b. #Ich I vermute, suppose dass that jemand somebody es it dort there verloren lost hat. has 'Is suppose that somebody has lost it there.'
	- c. Ich I vermute, suppose dass that jemand somebody das the Búch book dort there verloren lost hat. has 'Is suppose that somebody has lost the book there.'

Meinunger (2007) observed that the crucial factor for the acceptability of object*es* in the prefield is the specificity of the subject. With an indefinite unspecific subject as in (49a), object-*es* is fine but with a definite specific subject as in (49b), it is unacceptable and only the demonstrative *das* 'that' is acceptable.

	- a. Das/ that Es it muss must jemand someone hier here verloren lost haben. have 'Someone must have lost that/it here.'
	- b. Das/ that \*Es it muss must der the Professor professor hier here verloren lost haben. have 'The professor must have lost that/it here.'

Similarly, other non-referential pronouns such as the lexical reflexives in (50) and (51) cannot appear in the prefield (see Speyer 2009: 325 fn. 2 and references therein).¹⁴

	- b. \* Mich refl habe have ich I geärgert/ been mistaken getäuscht. been upset

	- b. \* *Es* it *hat* has *Karl* Karl *eilig.* urgent
	- c. *Es* it *hatte* had *niemand* no one *wirklich* really *eilig* urgent 'No one was really in a hurry.'
	- d. *Niemand* no one *hatte* had *\*(es)* it *wirklich* really *eilig* urgent

**14** Speyer (2009: 325 fn. 2) also claims that object-expletives are banned from the prefield. However, his contrast pair, given in (i.a) and (i.b), is ill-chosen because it features a specific subject. With an indefinite unspecific subject as in (i.c), the object-expletive is fine in the prefield, thereby paralleling the cases with referential object-*es* discussed above. Example (i.a) shows that the expletive is obligatory also in the middle field.

### **32** | 2 The Syntax of V2

b. \* Sich refl hat has das that niemand nobody komplett entirely angehört. listened to

Specific non-argumental dative elements (free datives/*Dativus ethicus*) are banned from the sentence-initial position too (Wöllstein-Leisten et al. 1997: 37). These datives are obligatorily realized by a weak pronoun (Mollica 2014: 353).

(52) a.  b. \* Mir bist du ein Schlingel.

me.dat are you a rascal (see Wöllstein-Leisten et al. 1997: 37)¹⁵

The same restriction is observed for a further class of pro-forms: Some verbs which take a clausal complement allow the insertion of the pro-form *es* 'it' or *das* 'that' in the matrix clause, as shown in (53a) and (54a).¹⁶ In (53b), it seems as if the proform *es* could occupy the prefield. However, the unacceptability of (54b) and the impossibility of the pro-form *das* in the prefield position in (53c) and (54c) indicate that the *es* in (53b) must be analyzed as expletive prefield-*es*, the occurrence of which is known to depend on the lexical verb (cf. Speyer 2009).¹⁷

	- b. *Fall* fall *mir* me.dat *(heute)* today *nicht* not *hin.* down 'Don't fall down (today).'
	- c. \* *Heute* today *fall* fall *mir* me.dat *nicht* not *hin.* down

**16** Reis (1997) calls these pro-forms *Platzhalter-Korrelate* 'placeholder correlates'.

**17** Speyer (2009) takes it for granted that the prefield-*es* in clauses such as (53b) is coreferent with the embedded clauses without providing any diagnostic.

Yvonne Viesel (p. c.) does not perceive the contrasts as unacceptable as indicated in (53) and (54). Moreover she provided example (i.a), which also sound very good to me. However, replacing *das*

**15** Wöllstein-Leisten et al. (1997) state that these datives may not appear in the prefield. Their example, given in (i.a), however, is somewhat confusing because they place the dative pronoun in sentence-initial position of an imperative clause. In imperatives, no constituent is allowed to precede the verb (except for heavy emphasis), as illustrated in (i.c) with the adverbial *heute* 'today'.

	- b. Es It ist is dem [the Vater father]dat egal, equal dass that Christopher Christopher zu to spät late kommt. comes 'The father doesn't care that Christopher is late.'
	- c. ??/\* Dasi It ist is dem [the Vater father]dat egal, equal [dass that Christopher Christopher zu to spät late kommt]i . comes 'The father doesn't care that Christopher is late.'

'The father suspected that Christopher will be late.'

The reason why all the above mentioned pro-forms cannot appear in the prefield is that they cannot be accented. Without being stressed, only pro-forms that are the highest elements in the middle field can occupy the prefield via an operation which Frey (2004) calls *formal movement*. This is the case for object-*es* with indefinite unspecific subjects. Lexical reflexive pronouns, free datives (Dativus ethicus) and the clausal pro-forms discussed above are never the highest elements of the middle field irrespective of the specificity of the subject. Hence, they can never appear in the prefield, where they must bear stress. Crucially, none of these can

	- b. \* *Es* expl *hab* have *ich* I *(doch)* prt *geahnt,* suspected *dass* that *Christopher* Christopher *wieder* again *zu* to *spät* late *kommt.* comes

by *es* results in unacceptability, shown in (i.b), which indicates that the *es* is rather the prefield expletive than the pro-form of the embedded clause.

be stressed, which results in their ban from the prefield.¹⁸ In essence, weak pronouns are banned from the prefield because the information structural properties of the prefield position require phonological marking in German, which cannot be realized by these elements for lexico-phonological reasons.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Qualificational adverbs**

Some adverbials that express the degree to which the event depicted by the predicate holds are quite unacceptable in the prefield, as shown in (55)–(57).¹⁹

	- b. \* Ríchig really hat has niemand no one dem the Professor professor (damals) back then ríchtig zugehört listened to
	- b. \* Káum hardly hast have du you deinen your Bruder brother (gestern) yesterday káum angeschaut. looked at

'Allegedly, the goalie hit the player right in the face.'

b. \* Vóll right hat has der the Torwart goalkeeper dem the Spieler player (angeblich) allegedly vóll ins in the Gesicht face geschlagen.

(i) *Kaum* shortly after *hast* has *du* you *deinen* your *Bruder* brother *angeschaut,* looked at, *da* then *gab* gave *es* it *auch* also *schon* already *Streit.* trouble 'As soon as you looked at your brother, the trouble started.'

hit

**18** The impossibility of carrying stress has been noted for weak referential pronouns (Travis 1991, Frey 2006b, Meinunger 2007), Dativus ethicus (Mollica 2014: 353), and clausal pro-forms (see Reis 1997: 131).

**19** Note that *kaum* can also be used as a temporal conjunction in the sense of 'shortly after', as which it can appear in the prefield as shown in (i). This reading is irrelevant here.

The a-examples indicate that those adverbials can be accented in their base position in the middle field. At this time, I must leave open why these adverbs are resistant to topicalization.

#### **<IP_ADDRESS> VPs**

VPs can be fronted quite easily in German. However, there seem to be languagespecific restrictions among the V2-languages. In Icelandic, topicalization of the sole verb as well as a VP (verb plus object) is generally impossible (Thráinsson 2007: 344, 349).²⁰ Swedish allows VP-topicalization only for certain verb classes like eventives 'read a book' but not for statives like 'know Swedish' (Källgren & Prince 1989: 48–49).

A general observation is that VP-topicalization is heavily restricted if it targets the subject and the verb in intransitive structures and impossible if this leads to the exclusion of other arguments in (di-)transitive structures, in line with classic assumptions about constituency (see De Kuthy & Meurers 2003 for German and Bhatt 1994: 42–43 for Kashmiri). Additionally, the subject included in a topicalized VP may not be definite and the middle field must not be empty (Wöllstein-Leisten et al. 1997: 103–104), as illustrated for the unaccusative *landen* 'land' in the examples in (58b) and (58c). The same contrast is also observable with the impersonal passive in (59) and the unergative verb in (60).

	- '… that a plane has landed'
	- b. \* [Das the Flugzeug plane gelandet] landed ist is (auf on dem the roten red Platz square noch yet nie). never
	- c. [Ein a Flugzeug plane gelandet] landed ist is \*(auf on dem the roten red Platz square noch yet nie). never 'No plane has ever landed on the Red Square yet.'
	- (see Haider 1988: 108–109)
	- b. \* [Das the Flugzeug plane gesichtet] sighted wurde was (dort there noch never nie). yet

**20** Thanks to Jóhannes Gísli Jónsson (p. c.) for making me aware of this.

### **36** | 2 The Syntax of V2

c. [Ein a Flugzeug plane gesichtet] sighted wurde was \*(dort there noch never nie). yet 'No plane was ever seen there yet.' (see Haider 1988: 108–109) (60) a. … dass that ein a Außenseiter outsider gewonnen won hat. has '… that an underdog has won' b. \* [Dieser this Außenseiter outsider gewonnen] won hat has (dort there noch never nie). yet c. [Ein a Außenseiter outsider gewonnen] won hat has \*(dort there noch never nie). yet

'No underdog has ever won there yet.'

(see Haider 1988: 108–109)

It remains puzzling why some material has to follow the finite verb in the cexamples above because the examples in (61) and (62) show that string vacuous movement of the verb is not ruled out generally.²¹

	- b. … dass that du you spinnst spin
		- '… that you're nuts'
	- b. … dass that geohrfeigt slapped zu to werden be schmerzt. hurts

'… that it hurts to be slapped.'

(Haider 1988: 109)

This descriptive presentation will suffice for now, for syntactic analysis of VP-topicalization see Ott (2018) and references therein.

**21** Yvonne Viesel (p. c.) suggested that empty middle fields are acceptable only if a lexical verb appears in the V2-position but not if an auxiliary appears there. This appears to be the correct generalization, however, it remains to be investigated why this leads to a contrast in acceptability.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Paratactic clauses**

Generally, embedded clauses can occupy the prefield as illustrated for complement clauses in (63b) and adverbial clauses in (63c).

	- b. [Dass that wir we in in die the Kneipe pub gehen] go hat has Christopher Christopher angenommen, assumend weil because wir we das that immer always so so machen. make
	- c. [Weil because wir we das that immer always so so machen] make hat has Christopher Christopher angenommen, assumend dass that wir we in in die the Kneipe pub gehen. go

However, some dependent clauses seem to be immobile although they show a typical embedded clause word order, such as the free *dass*-clauses (Reis 1997: 132–138) in (64).

	- b.

	- b. [Um for nicht not nass wet zu to werden] become nahm took sie she den the Regenschirm umbrella mit. with

(66) a. Sie she nahm took den the Regenschirm umbrella mit, with damit so that sie she nicht not nass wet werden become würde. would

'She took the umbrella with her so that she wouldn't get wet.'

b. [Damit so that sie she nicht not nass wet werden become würde,] would nahm took sie she den the Regenschirm umbrella mit. with

However, if these complementizers introduce a prospective clause, fronting of the dependent clauses is impossible, as illustrated in (67) and (68).²²

(67) a. Sie she stellte placed den the Regenschirm umbrella neben next to sich, her um for ihn it dann then am at the Ende end doch prt zu to vergessen. forget 'She placed the umbrella next to her only to forget it anyway.'

	- b. \* [Damit so that sie she ihn it dann then am at the Ende end doch prt vergaß] forgot stellte placed sie she den the Regenschirm umbrella neben next to sich. her

Similarly, V2-complement clauses cannot appear in the prefield, as shown in (69a) and (69b). Example (69c) illustrates that a canonical V-final *dass*-clause can appear in the prefield in the same environment (see e. g. Reis 1997).

**22** Thanks to Łukasz Jędrzejowski (p. c.) for making me aware of the immobility of prospective *um zu*-clauses.

	- b. \* [Eri he sei is.subj unheimlich weirdly beliebt] popular möchte wants jederi everyone gern gladly glauben. believe
	- c. [Dass that eri he unheimlich weirdly beliebt popular sei] is.subj möchte wants jederi everyone gern gladly glauben. believe 'Everyonei wants to believe that hei is extremely popular.'

(see Reis 1997: 139)

The same argumentation applies also to V2-variants of *weil* 'because' clauses, as shown by the paradigm in (70) (Frey 2012, Antomo & Steinbach 2010).²³

	- b. \* [Weil because ich I habe have kein no Geld] money komme come ich I nicht not mit. with
	- c. [Weil because ich I kein no Geld money habe] have komme come ich I nicht not mit. with 'I will not join you because I have not enough money.'

I assume that such clausal elements have in common that they are paratactically connected with the main clause. As a consequence, they are not a proper constituent of the main clause and therefore cannot move to the prefield.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Long-distance elements**

Typically, only constituents of the main clause can appear in the sentence-initial position. This correctly excludes adverbials of embedded clauses (Frey 2004), as shown by the contrast in (71), and extends to recursively embedded clauses, as in (72) and (73).

(71) a. Ich I werde will ihr her mitteilen, tell dass that der the Professor professor gestern yesterday nach for ihr her gefragt asked hat. has 'I will tell her that the professor asked for her yesterday.'

**23** The two variants of *weil*-clauses do not exhibit the same meaning potential. In addition to the literature cited above see Scheffler (2013: 50–55).

'However, I still can't believe that Christopher has told us yesterday that we should inherit grandma's house.'

	- b. \* [Weil because er he sich refl verschluckt choked on hatte]1 had ging went die the Frau woman nach at Hause, home [bevor before ihr her Bruder brother husten cough musste must *t* 1 ].

However, long-distance extraction is possible for *wh*-elements as in (74a), degraded for NPs as in (74b), and strongly degraded for VPs as in (74c), (see Müller 2004). Additionally, such long-distance extractions have been intensively discussed under the term *Syntactic Islands*. It became clear that the overall acceptability of such structures depends on the clause type (see Freitag 2012 and references therein) and is also subject to dialectal variation (Fanselow & Weskott 2010).

(74) a. Wen1 who.acc hast have du you gedacht, thought dass that der the Schlagzeuger drummer wen1 geküsst kissed hat? has 'Who did you think that the drummer had kissed?'

```
(see Müller 2004: 201–203)
```
In sum, some constituents of more deeply embedded clauses are able to move to the prefield. However, long-distance extraction is very restricted.

### **<IP_ADDRESS> Summary of licit prefield elements**

The discussion revealed that the prefield position is a proper syntactic position that must be filled in declarative clauses, as a last resort option even by a semantically empty expletive. Typically any main clause constituent may occupy this position. The restrictions on prefield elements can be divided into three major groups. First, paratactic clauses and constituents of lower embedded clauses are forbidden because they do not count as constituents of the main clause. Furthermore, the sentence-initial position is strongly related to an information structural position of the sentence topic or emphatic contrast. This accounts for the second type of restriction: If an element cannot function as a topic or does not employ a meaningful contrast, the element is infelicitous in the prefield, such as certain verbal particles and presumably qualificational adverbs. The third type of restriction is directly related to the special interpretation of this position: If the element in question is not the highest element in the middle field, it cannot move to the prefield without bearing stress. Weak pronouns cannot bear stress and can therefore only move to the prefield if they are the highest element of the middle field. Three phenomena that have been discussed are not covered by these explanations. These are negation, discourse particles and VP-topicalization. For each of these elements I have noted that there is cross-linguistic variation among the V2-languages whether these elements are allowed in the prefield or not. This indicates that the restrictions are rather language-specific and not a direct property of the V2-configuration as such. I must leave the explanation of these elements for future research.

### **2.2 Exceptions: Non-V2 structures**

Exceptional non-V2-structures come in three main categories: first, clauses with an empty prefield, second, independent clauses in which the finite verb does not move at all, i. e. V-final main clauses, and third, clauses in which more than one constituent appears in the prefield, before the fronted verb.

### **2.2.1 V-initial clauses**

In addition to polar interrogatives, German also exhibits declarative clauses with V1-order. Two forms must be distinguished. The first is the result of *Topic Drop* (see Oppenrieder 2013: 36–39, Trutkowski 2016). As shown in (75a), an argument can be left out if it is a salient topic whereas (75b) illustrates, that deletion of the same element is illicit in the middle field. Hence these structures are underlyingly proper V2-clauses.

(75) Was ist mit den Weingläsern?

'What about the wine glasses?'

	- I have them already on the table placed

However, German exhibits several specific V1-declaratives such as the justification sentence in (76a), which is not only a variant of a V2-clause, as the contrasting example in (76b) shows. Further examples are given in (77) that are typical for narrative style, such as, but not exclusively, jokes (Oppenrieder 2013: 40-42).

a.

b.   Euro 'I went to the market today. A bunch of parsley cost 2 Euros.' (see Oppenrieder 2013: 41)
	- c. (\*Es/ expl \*So) so Sollen should sie they ihn him (doch) prt haben. have 'They should have him then.' (see Oppenrieder 2013: 42)

These V1-structures also have specific felicity conditions that correlate with their interpretational properties. Syntactically, they might be treated on a par with other V1-structures, such as polar interrogatives.

### **2.2.2 V-final main clauses**

German also exhibits independent clauses in which the finite verb remains in its base position. These either show formal features of interrogative clauses, such the interrogative in (78a) and the exclamative in (78b), or they exhibit a complementizer such as the declarative *dass* in (79a) or the interrogative *ob* in (79b). Truckenbrodt (2013) provides arguments against an ellipsis analysis and details about the felicity conditions and the interpretational potential of independent V-final clauses (see also Oppenrieder 2013: 42–43).

	- b. Wie how schön beautiful du you doch prt Klavier piano spielen play kannst. can 'How beautiful you play the piano.'

(79) a. Dass that du you mir me (ja) prt nicht not zu to spät late heimkommst! home come 'Don't be late tonight!' (Truckenbrodt 2013: 238) b. (X: Peter hasn't written in a long time. Y: That's true.) X: Ob whether es it ihm him gut well geht? goes 'I wonder whether he is doing well.' (Truckenbrodt 2006a: 261)

All V-final main clauses are formally identical to embedded clauses. Hence, the syntactic structure is comparable to regular embedded clauses in German. Clearly, there must exist a pragmatic mechanism to interpreted these dependent clauses as an illocutionary act, a topic which is well beyond the scope of the present discussion (see Bayer 2004: 84–89).

### **2.2.3 V>2 structures**

There are also some structures that (apparently) exhibit more than one constituent before the finite verb. Connectors such as *denn*, *doch*, and *aber* precede the sentence-initial constituent, as in (80), which shows that this also holds for non-subject-initial clauses.

(80) Denn/ because doch/ however aber but [Rosinen] raisins mag likes Christopher Christopher nicht. not 'Because/However/But Christopher doesn't like raisins.'

A different type of complex prefields are discussed in Müller (2003), Müller (2004: 218–219), and Müller (2005), among others. Examples of characteristic patterns are given in (81). It has been noted that the order of the two prefield elements is fixed (Müller 2005: 307–308), that the fronted elements have to be clause mates (Fanselow 1993: 67)²⁴, and that the acceptability of examples like (81e) depends on the specificity and definiteness of the fronted DPs (Müller 2004: 218–219). Müller (2005) proposes to analyze the fronted elements as one complex constituent with an empty head, similar to a VP. Under such an analysis, the prefield is only apparently filled with multiple constituents.

**24** Note that extraction out of embedded clauses is highly restricted on its own, as discussed in Section <IP_ADDRESS>.

	- b. [Alle all Träume] dream [gleichzeitig] simultaneously lassen let sich refl nur only selten seldom alle Träume gleichzeitig verwirklichen realize lassen.

'Only seldom, one can realize all dreams at once.' (Müller 2005: 299)

c. [Zum to the zweiten second Mal] time [die the Weltmeisterschaft] world championship errang won Clark Clark 1965 1965 … zum zweiten Mal die Welmeisterschaft errang.

'Clark won the world championship in 1965 for the second time.' (Müller 2005: 300)

d. [Von from Konstanz] Constance [nach to Bern] Bern wird will Urs Urs morgen tomorrow von Konstanz nach Bern fahren drive

'Tomorrow, Urs will drive from Constance to Bern.' (Fanselow 1987: 99)

e. ?? [Kindern] children [Bonbons] sweets sollte should man one KindernBonbons nicht not geben give sollte 'One should not give sweet to children.' (Müller 2004: 218)

Grewendorf (2013) argues that German provides a principled option of left-dislocating²⁵ topic constituents in a position preceding the canonical prefield, as shown for an argument in (82a), also preceding a *wh*-term as in (82b), and for adverbials in (82c) and (82d). Those initial constituents cannot occupy the prefield.²⁶

**25** I will exclude so-called *hanging topics* (*nominativus pendens*) because they are less integrated into the host clauses (see Shaer & Frey 2004, Nolda 2004).

**26** Though for different reasons: If the sentence-initial DP in (82a) appears in the prefield, the resumptive pronoun must be deleted. The same applies to (82b), in addition to the complementary distribution with the *wh*-term in the prefield. If the adverbial clause in (82c) appears in the prefield, it is preferably interpreted as an integrated conditional clause which results in an implausible interpretation. The initial constituent in (82d) cannot appear in the prefield at all.

(82) a. [Den the Gesetzentwurf draft bill zur to the Armeereform,]i army reform [deni ] this lehnte refused der the Senat senat ab. prt

'The draft bill of the army reform, the senat refused it.'

A phenomenon that looks superficially similar is *emphatic topicalization*, described in Bayer & Dasgupta (2016) and illustrated in (83): A constituent of the embedded clause is topicalized in front of the complementizer. As a consequence, the embedded clause must appear sentence-initially. If the analysis of Bayer & Dasgupta (2016) is correct, the prefield is occupied by only one constituent, an embedded clause with a complex prefield of its own.

	- a. [[Da the Hans] Hans [ob whether da Hans kummt]]1 comes woass-e know-I ned not *t* 1 . 'As for Hans, I don't know whether he will come.' (Bayer & Dasgupta

2016: 5)

b. [[Der] he [wenn when der das this nochmal again macht]]1 does bin am ich I echt really grantig pissed *t* 1 . 'If he does this again, I'm going to be really pissed.'²⁷

Additionally, it has been noted that multiple adverbials can be placed in the prefield, which is known as *adverbial stacking* and illustrated in (84a) for Swedish and in (84b) for German. The German example also illustrates the restrictions on adverb stacking: First, stacked adverbials show the same (language-specific ordering) as in the middle field. Second, only event modifying adverbials take part in the stacking, i. e. they cannot be accompanied by the epistemic adverbial *vermutlich* 'pressumably' or the optional argument *ein Lied* 'a song' although these might

**27** From a speaker of Northern Bavarian.

appear in their base position. Even though the adverbials form separate prosodic phrases, it is commonly assumed that they form a kind of cluster that occupies only a single syntactic position (Haider 2000a: 97-102, Holmberg 2015: 353–354).

(84) a. Swedish

[I går,] yesterday [vid at femtiden,] about.five [utanför outside stationen,] the.station, [när when jag I kom came från from jobbet,] work, mötte met jag I en an gammal old skolkamrat. schoolmate 'Yesterday, at about five, outside the station, when I came home from work, I met an old schoolmate of mine.' (Holmberg 2015: 353)

b. German

[Vor before zwei two Wochen] weeks [in in Italien] Italy [am at the Strand] beach [als when die the Sonne sun ungerging] sunk 〈\*vermutlich〉 presumably 〈\*ein a Lied〉 song hat has der the Junge boy 〈vermutlich〉 presumably 〈ein a Lied〉 gesungen.

song sung

'In Italy, at the beach, two weeks ago, before the sun disappeared, the boy presumably sang a song.'

A further form of complex prefield is currently discussed for urban vernacular varieties of German (*Kiezdeutsch*), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.²⁸ Characteristic for this V3-configuration is that exclusively in subject-initial main clauses, one adverb may precede the subject, as shown in (85). For more details see Wiese (2009), Freywald et al. (2015), Walkden (2017), Bonke (2017). Crucially, the fact that this pattern does not extend to object-initial clauses and that it is not obligatory for subject-initial clauses indicates that it is discourse pragmatically driven and does not represent a novel syntactic structure (see especially Freywald et al. 2015).

	- a. [ab from jétzt] now [ich] I krieg get immer always zwánzig twenty euro euros 'From now on, I get always twenty euros.' (Freywald et al. 2015: 89)
	- b. [danach] afterwards [er] he sagt says zu to O., O. geh go mal prt wég away 'Afterwards, he says to O. [=name], go away.' (Walkden 2017: 55)

**28** According to Freywald et al. (2015), these structures occur extremely rarely in the corresponding Dutch variant.

In sum, we have seen that there are several cases in which either complex elements occupy the prefield or an additional element precedes a V2-structure for specific discourse pragmatic reasons. However, all these options are highly restricted.

### **2.2.4 Summary of the non-V2 patterns**

In this section, I have presented three classes of deviations from V2-patterns. The first two have been identified as syntactically regular V1-patterns and as embedded clause patterns. What makes them exceptional is not their syntactic structure but their usage as independent utterances. In the third class, apparently more than one constituent precedes the V2-position. Such an extension of the left periphery seems likely for connectors like *aber* 'but' and left-dislocated elements including the examples from the urban vernacular varieties. For the other form of complex prefields, subsuming emphatic topicalization and adverbial stacking, it seems likely that only one constituent, though a complex one, occupies the prefield.

### **2.3 Explanations: A brief history of syntactic accounts**

The core characterization of the V2-phenomenon was already described by Erdmann (1886: 182–185)²⁹, who states explicitly that the position preceding the finite verb is not a specific subject position but can be freely occupied by other nouns, adverbials, predicative expressions, or even dependent clauses. This description, however, does not explain how this configuration emerges. In the following, I will focus on the productive line of research based on transformational grammar that assumes that the V2-order is a derived order. Opponents of transformational analyses proposed two unrelated ordering sources for matrix and embedded clause order, for instance Bartsch & Vennemann (1972), but see Koster (1975) for a principled criticism. But even within the generative grammar, we find a variety of analyses. Ross (1969: 95) for instance proposed that the base word order of German is SVO and the finite verb is moved into the clause-final position in embedded clauses by a movement rule.

**29** Reference found in Haider (1985: 49).

### **2.3.1 Insertion into the middle field**

The insight that German (and Dutch) posess a verb-final basic word order is not very old. Bierwisch (1963: 34) acknowledges that Fourquet (1959) was the first who formulated the observation that the order of subordinate clauses is actually the basic configuration from which the orders of main clauses are derived. Fourquet (1959: 139, fn. 6) also argued that there is one structural position in front of the finite verb which can be filled by subjects and non-subjects alike and that a subjectoriented syntax, does not add any explanatory value, as expressed in the following quote:

The rule that the subject is inverted after the verb if the first constituent that precedes the finite verb is not the subject is as insightful as the statement that a motorcyclist in France does not give a German a lift if he already has a non-German on the pillion. It is forbidden by law to have more than one person on the pillion: that is all.³⁰

Early transformational grammar approaches for German word order have been more or less simultaneously published by Bach (1962) and Bierwisch (1963), even though the latter is far more extensive. The basic derivation of V2-order, however, is almost identical. Both authors propose to derive the appropriate order by placing the finite verb behind the first constituent (Bach 1962: 269, Bierwisch 1963: 111).³¹ These approaches could therefore be translated as inserting the verb after the highest element in the middle field, i. e. the sub-CP-domain.³² That the OVorder is the underlying order and the basis for the transformational rule is motivated by the following observations: All infinitival forms occur in clause-final position as in (86a), and in complex verb forms, only the finite element moves whereas all other elements appear in the clause-final position as in (86b). Fragment answers and lexical mentioning always show verb-final order, as in (86c) and (86d). Furthermore, particles of particle verbs appear in the clause-final position, as in (86e) (see Bierwisch 1963: 35).

**30** "Die Regel, daß das Subjekt dem Verb nachgestellt ist, wenn das erste Satzglied, auf das das v. f. [verbum finitum] folgt, nicht das Subjekt ist, hat ebensoviel Wert wie die Feststellung, daß in Frankreich ein Motorradfahrer keinen Deutschen aufnimmt, wenn er einen Nicht-Deutschen auf dem Soziussitz hat: gesetzlich darf er nicht zwei Personen auf den Soziussitz nehmen, das ist alles." (Fourquet 1959: 139, fn. 6, translation C. F.)

**31** V1-structures are the result of placing the finite verb behind a phonologically empty element. Interrogatives, imperatives and prefield expletive-*es* are generated by morphophonemic rules (Bierwisch 1963: 112).

**32** It must be noted that a mapping onto a modern sentence skeleton is not unproblematic.

	- b. Er he *hätte* had einen a Teller plate *gekauft* bought *haben* have *sollen*. should 'He should have bought a plate.'
	- c. A: Was machst du?

'What do you do?'

'donate somebody something (as a present)'

e.

Additional support for the underlying V-final order comes from verbs that cannot undergo movement to the V2-position, as discussed in Section 2.1.3: All verbs that can appear in V2-position do also appear in clause-final position but not vice versa.

To prevent verb movement in embedded clauses, Bach (1962: 269) included a clause boundary symbol into the definition of the transformation rule by stipulation.

### **2.3.2 V-to-C movement (plus phrasal movement)**

Within the sentence skeleton of the X-bar theory, the restriction of V2-movement to main clauses could receive a principled explanation. Emonds (1970: 10–12) noticed that V2 is only one of several syntactic transformations that apply only in root clauses, hence the term *root transformations*. den Besten (1983) attempted to generalize the notion of root transformations even further and identified two

crucial insights for the analysis of V2-clauses: First, V2-movement (and likewise all root transformations) targets the clause-initial COMP-position.³³ The verb thereby moves into a fixed position with the consequence that, in subject-initial clauses, the subject has to be preposed like all other initial constituents. den Besten (1983: 56–60) provides the following arguments in favor of the positional identity of the V2-position and the COMP-position. Weak pronouns in Dutch appear right-adjacent to the finite verb in main clauses and right-adjacent to the complementizer in subordinate clauses.³⁴ Additionally, the positional identity of V2 and COMP accounts for the complementary distribution of verb movement and overt complementizer in German and Dutch (den Besten 1983: 17–18). Furthermore, den Besten (1983: 115–117) introduces the idea that verb movement is triggered by a morphosyntactic feature. Motivated by the selectional differences of complementizers like *dass* 'that', which combines with finite (tensed) VPs, and complementizers like *um* 'for', which combines with non-finite (untensed) VPs, he labels this feature *tense*. This labeling is somewhat surprising considering that non-finite forms may express temporal relations and that, in complementizer agreement, only subject-agreement morphemes show up at the complementizer, as den Besten (1983: 119) even notes himself. To account for the movement of the sentence-initial phrase, den Besten (1983: 60–61) formulates a Wh*-Movement Rule* and a *Constituent Preposing Rule* in the fashion of the transformational grammar. Generally this mechanism has been retained, even though it is currently assumed that the movement is triggered by specific features on the C head that may be more directly connected to interpretational aspects like in *wh*-questions³⁵, or must be formally enforced by an EPP-feature³⁶. A simple scheme of the V-to-C analysis is given in (87).

**33** As den Besten (1983: 51,107) acknowledges, the idea that V2 is generated by verb movement and (subsequent) movement of one constituent (including the subject) in front of the verb has also been assumed around the same time by Higgins (1973: 152, fn. 5), Williams (1974), Koster (1975), and Emonds (1976: 40).

**34** Similar restrictions on the placement of pronouns hold for German too (see Haider 2010: 131– 141).

**35** Following Cheng (1991), movement of a *wh*-phrase into the left periphery is one way to execute *clausal typing* (see also Brandner 2004).

**36** The *Extended Projection Principle* (Chomsky 1981) captures the observation that some heads (such as I in English) require an overt constituent, in this case a subject, which may also be a semantically empty expletive. A similar regularity holds for the prefield element in V2-languages. In the minimalist framework this EPP-feature corresponds to a strong feature (Chomsky 1995: 232). However, the relatively free choice of constituents which may satisfy this feature in V2-clauses is much more problematic than for subjects.

### **2.3.3 (A)symmetric V2: V-to-I movement in subject-initial clauses**

Within the Principles and Parameters approach, scholars tried to account for the word order variation within the Germanic V2-languages with different phrase structure parameters, namely V-to-I and I-to-C movement (see e. g. Platzack 1986, Vikner 1995). Some authors have doubted that all V2-clauses are derived by Vto-C movement. Two popular proposals of this kind are Travis (1991) and Zwart

(1994).³⁷ The interesting departure from the *traditional* analysis is that they assume that V2-movement does not target a uniform position within the clause structure but that subject-initial clauses are generated by movement of the verb to the phrase-initial I-head³⁸, as shown in (88). Non-subject-initial clauses are analyzed as V-to-C movement as in the traditional account, as in (89).

	- a. Der [the Junge boy].nom hat has gestern yesterday den [the Kuchen cake].acc gegessen eaten hat. 'The boy has ate the cake yesterday.'

**37** These two accounts differ with respect to the headedness of the VP: Travis (1991) assumes a head-final VP for German and Dutch whereas Zwart (1994) assumes a head-initial VP following the *antisymmetry* approach of Kayne (1994). In a nutshell, Zwart (1994) proposes that the basic underlying word order of Dutch (and German) is SVO, from which a second order, namely SOV is derived by raising the subject and the object to higher functional positions (Spec-AgrObjP and Spec-AgrSubP). Note the criticism of antisymmetry approaches to SOV-languages in Haider (2012).

**38** In Zwart (1994), this head is identified as the AgrSubj-head of a split-IP model.

	- a. Den [the Kuchen cake].acc hat has der [the Junge boy].nom gestern yesterday den Kuchen gegessen eaten hat. 'The boy ate the cake yesterday.'

I will not go into detail of the theoretical arguments concerning the contemporary models at that time but rather focus on the empirical arguments in favor of a dis**56** | 2 The Syntax of V2

tinction between subject-initial and non-subject-initial clauses (for an extensive discussion with counterarguments see Schwartz & Vikner 1989 and Schwartz & Vikner 1996). The main evidence comes from the distribution of clitics and weak pronouns. The observation is that there is an asymmetry that allows weak pronouns to appear in the prefield only if they are subjects and not if they are objects (Travis 1991: 359). The example is illustrated for the neuter German weak pronoun *es* 'it' in (90). Taking the sentence in (90a) as an illustration of the base order, it is possible to express the subject by a weak pronoun, as in (90b), but unacceptable for the object, as in (90c). As I have discussed in Section <IP_ADDRESS>, this asymmetry is only apparent and depends on the definiteness and specificity of the other arguments in the middle field. As Travis (1991: 359) partly suggests, the problem of putting *es* into the prefield position seems to correlate with the incompatibility of stressing *es*. Consequently, changing the sentence as in (90d) allows an unstressed object-*es* in the prefield. Hence, there is no empirical basis to postulate a more elaborate syntactic structure than the V-to-C model.

	- b. Es it hat has gestern yesterday das the Buch book gelesen. read 'Yesterday it read the book.'
	- c. \* Es it hat has das the Kind child gestern yesterday gelesen. read 'Yesterday the child read it.'
	- d. Es it hat has noch yet niemand nobody gelesen. read 'Until now, nobody read it.'

### **2.3.4 Two types of V2-movement: Force and Fin**

Following the influential article of Rizzi (1997), the C-domain has been divided into an articulated structure with functional layers, that are related to specific information structural properties on the one hand, such as frame setting, topic, and focus, and two positions that are related to the clause-internal structure and the superordinate structure, namely Fin and Force. Such an articulated periphery may look like in (91). Each of the layers provides a head position and a specifier position. Intuitively, FinP has been associated with V2-movement because

V2-movement only affects finite verbs. The additional positions have been used to account for systematic extensions of the V2-constraint to V3(+n) structures, especially in North Italian dialects (Poletto 2002) and Medieval Romance (Wolfe 2016). To account for typical V2-languages which provide only one position in front of the finite verb, Poletto (2002) and Wolfe (2016) propose that verb movement targets different final landing sites in those languages: In all V2-languages, in order to check the finiteness feature, the finite verb moves to FinP, which is also the final landing site in Fin-V2 languages. As a consequence, more than one element may precede the moved verb. In Force-V2 languages on the other hand, the Force-head has a strong feature that attracts the finite verb in Fin. Consequently, only frame setters or hanging topics may precede the V2-position (Poletto 2002: 237–238).

(91) [HangingTopic/FrameP [ForceP [TopP [FocP [ FinP [TP … ]]]]]]

The *Split-V2* approach offers a way to account for cross-linguistic variation of the number of elements preceding the finite verb in (apparent) V2-languages. However, it does not provide any insight as to why the verb moves and what triggers this movement to FinP. On the contrary, this account introduces a further puzzle, namely a second abstract feature in ForceP that attracts the finite verb in FinP. In sum, we see that in such a two-stage system, we have to duplicate the stipulated trigger for V2-movement which is already problematic in the classical V2-system.

### **2.3.5 Remnant movement**

Müller (2004) proposes a remnant movement account for V2 in German. In this account, the V2-configuration does not result from two different movements into the C-domain but from only one phrasal movement operation of vP into Spec-CP. Müller (2004) assumes a structural analysis of a simple German sentences as in (92).

(92) a. (dass) that der the Junge boy gestern yesterday den the Kuchen cake gegessen eaten hat has 'that yesterday, the boy ate the cake.'

At this stage, all surface constituents are inside vP. Moving vP to Spec-CP would therefore not change the order of the constituents. To obtain the V2-order, all elements that should not appear in the C-domain must be evacuated from vP, as shown in (93). Subsequently, the vP moves to Spec-CP and yields a subject-initial V2-clause, as in (94).

The derivation of object-initial V2-clauses is even more complicated, as shown in (95). Only after a cascade of evacuation movements, the vP is prepared to move to Spec-CP: First, the object is scrambled to the edge of vP. Afterwards, the remaining VP, the adverbial, and the subject are raised to specifiers in the T-domain.

I will not discuss further sentence types but rather focus on the mechanism. Movement is feature driven. Therefore, the movement of vP to Spec-CP must be induced by a feature. Müller (2004) assumes that the C-head bares a strong feature [\*v\*]

which attracts vP. In this respect, the remnant movement account has to stipulate the attraction mechanism in the same way as the traditional account does for the head movement. Furthermore, Müller (2004) has to assume additional movement triggers to enable the evacuation of the vP, such as an optional [\*D\*] feature on T (Müller 2004: 189).

### **2.3.6 Semantico-pragmatic accounts of V2**

Semantico-pragmatic accounts of V2 received a lot of attention in the last thirty years (e. g. Wechsler 1991, Brandner 2004, Truckenbrodt 2006a,b, Julien 2015, Lohnstein 2020). I will not go into the details of the differences between these formalizations but rather focus on the common core and sketch two problematic issues.

The history of these accounts starts with the observation of Hooper & Thompson (1973) that root transformation apply only in *asserted* clauses. Common to the above-mentioned accounts is that they derive the illocutionary force in a combinatorial fashion in which verb movement plays an essential part. Truckenbrodt (2006a), for instance, assumes that the CP bears context indices which must be checked via verb movement. These context indices specify the deontic aspect of the speech act, i. e. what the speaker wants in uttering the sentence. Imperative morphology specifies that the speaker wants the addressee to perform what is denoted by the clause. Declaratives and interrogatives are used in acts to change the epistemic states of the interlocutors: Declaratives are used to assert something, i. e. the addressee should accept the content of the utterance. Interrogatives are used to ask the addressee for information. Whereas in −wh clauses, verb movement is essential for evaluating the epistemic component, the crucial effect in +wh clauses reduces to addressee-specification. This already indicates that the ascribed function of computing the illocutionary potential is non-trivial and verb movement does not serve only one purpose. The two effects are devoted to different properties of the verb: verbal mood for the epistemic component and subjectverb agreement for addressee-specification.

Semantico-pragmatic accounts are very attractive because they provide an explanation for why the verb actually has to move. They have in common that they assume that verb-movement is triggered by the need to type a clause, i. e. to express some kind of illocutionary force. And while there seems to be a strong correlation between verb position and clause types, there remain two major issues that relate to the cross-linguistic, the inter-linguistic, and the intra-linguistic level. The first issue concerns the cross-linguistic generality of the claim that illocutionary force has to be marked explicitly by a syntactic mechanism such as

verb movement. Proponents of these accounts must explain why (probably) a majority of languages does not show explicit marking for declarative assertions, i. e. how illocutionary force is activated in these cases and why this presumably more economic mechanism is not available in V2-languages. The second issue concerns the correlation between formal properties of sentences (V1, V2, etc.) and their illocutionary force, which is not as uniform as we would expect. On the one hand, we have seen in Section 2.2 that German also exhibits independent utterances without verb movement (see Bayer 2004: 88–89). On the other hand, the mechanism seems to be language-specific because in Kashmiri several types of subordinate clauses (e. g. complement clauses and causal clauses) show obligatory V2 movement without being independent illocutions (Bhatt & Yoon 1991, Bhatt 1995, Koul & Wali 2015). If, however, the effect of verb movement is not uniform, it begs the question why V2-languages show such a similar behavior in root clauses.

#### **2.3.7 Summary of the explanatory accounts**

The accounts for V2 that have been discussed in this section can be divided into two groups. The syntactic accounts focus on the mechanisms that derive the correct word order patterns by specifying appropriate features in the respective positions. The semantico-pragmatic accounts, on the hand, try to connect these movement-triggering features with specific aspects of illocutionary properties of the sentences.

### **2.4 Chapter summary**

The review of the observations about the V2-phenomenon showed that movement of the finite verb in main clauses can never be suspended. In Section 2.1.3, I discussed two configurations in which specific verb forms cannot move into the V2 position. Crucially, however, even in these configurations they cannot remain in their clause-final base position. Movement of phrasal constituents, on the other hand, seems to be much less general. V2-languages exhibit regular V1-structures as well as structures in which more than one element precedes the finite verb. Additionally, phrasal movement seems to be directly related to interpretational properties of the elements involved, such as topicality, contrast, etc. Verb movement, in contrast, does not seem to have such a specific meaning component.

The examination in this chapter also showed that V2-order is only the most frequent pattern in main clauses but V1- and V3-orders also occur regularly in the languages at hand. The review of the theoretical accounts revealed that a more precise definition is that the finite verb moves to a certain position. This position is definable in relation to other constituents such as subject and topic, and we might call it the C-position. Constitutional for V2-languages is therefore the relation between the base position of the verb (V) and the high, left-peripheral position (C). This is the core insight of the den Besten (1983) analysis which remains the most accurate and economic analysis until today. I have indicated that a class of accounts try to establish a connection between the movement trigger and the illocutionary potential of matrix clauses. The hypothesis that will be presented in the next chapter complements these observations insofar as it indicates that V2 movement is triggered by an abstract feature which is tied to finiteness inflection in German. However, the remainder of this book does not double down on the cause of V2-movement but focuses on the consequences especially for processing V2-clauses.

### **3 The V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis**

In this chapter, I argue that verbs which are attracted by V2-movement have to be reconstructed into their base position for interpretation. Consequently, the lexical meaning of the finite verb is never interpreted in the overt V2-position. I start by motivating and specifying this hypothesis. Thereafter, I present empirical observations in support for the claims that verbs are not interpreted in V2-position (Section 3.2) but that the verb must be interpreted in its base position (Section 3.3). In Section 3.4, I present the results of an acceptability study which investigates claims concerning periphrastic *tun*, thereby backing up the analysis of Section 3.2. The last section summarizes the results and addresses its consequences.

### **3.1 Defining the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis**

### **3.1.1 Introduction**

Based on the well-know and solid generalization that only finite verbs are subject to V2-movement, Bayer & Freitag (2020) argue that V2-movement is essentially feature movement. The crucial features that are attracted are the finiteness features which are encoded by the inflection at the finite verb. The inflection, however, cannot be separated from the verb for reasons of morphological integrity. Therefore, the verbal stem that carries the inflection has to move as a whole: The verb is piedpiped. Crucially, even though the verb moves to a higher position, it is interpreted in its base position. This *V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis*¹ is given in (1).

(1) *V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis*

The finite verb that appears in 2nd position in a V2-language is in this position only for the reason of generalized pied-piping. Even when it is perceived in V2-position, its lexical part is evaluated in its base position, i. e. in German in clause-final position. (Bayer & Freitag 2020: 79)

After a short note that clarifies the necessary concepts in relation to movement, reconstruction, and pied-piping, I will present empirical evidence in support for the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis in the following two sections. In Part II of this book, I will show that the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis makes very accurate predictions for the processing of German V2-clauses.

**1** *Conjecture about V2* in Bayer & Freitag (2020).

### **3.1.2 Understanding** *movement***,** *reconstruction***, and** *pied-piping*

Movement can be considered as the establishment of a dependency between two syntactic positions. Such dependencies can be categorized along two parameters: first, movement which is accompanied by an amendment or a change in meaning and second, movement which has no identifiable effect on meaning. In the Minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995), the division between the two interface levels, the Phonetic Form (PF, perceptual-articulatory dimension) and the Logical Form (LF, the conceptual dimension), has been proven to be very useful for the understanding of such dependencies. The types of movement are assumed to exhibit different requirements at the interfaces, such that the meaning-sensitive movement takes place also at LF, whereas the meaning-insensitive movement only takes place at the PF-interface. The four possible combinations of these interface requirements are summarized in Table 3.1.

**Table 3.1:** Types of movement

Why do elements move? In the minimalist framework, movement (or more appropriately *attraction*/*internal merge*) must be triggered by a strong uninterpretable feature. Such an [−interpretable] feature attracts the closest element that bears the appropriate feature to delete the [−interpretable] feature. In this way, an element is *moved* from its original position to the target position, where it is in some local relation to the attractor. The division of features into movement triggering [−interpretable] and non-triggering features [+interpretable] originates from a conceptual necessity of the derivational model. One should not be confused by the terminology (±interpretable) and assume that movement does not affect interpretation. Right the opposite is the case. Usually, movement is necessary to yield a grammatical/interpretable structure at all.

We can understand movement, or the establishment of a dependency between two syntactic positions, as a way to express two aspects of meaning with one syntactic object. For illustration, take the case of *wh*-fronting in (2). A declarative sentence, such as (2a) can be transformed into a *wh*-question by replacing a syntactic element by a respective *wh*-term, such as the subject in (2b) or the object in (2c) (the translations indicate the parallel structures in English). In *wh*-fronting

languages, such as German and English, the highest *wh*-term must be placed in clause-initial position.

	- b. *Wer* who.nom hat has wer diesen this Mann man gekannt? known 'Who knew who knew this man?'²
	- c. *Welchen* which *Mann* man hat has der the Junge boy welchen Mann gekannt? known 'Which man did the boy know which man?'

Examples (2a) and (2b), however, show that an object can be interpreted in the post-subject position. Therefore, the only properties that need to be interpreted clause-initially in (2c) are the ones that are tied to the interrogative meaning. Following standard assumptions, I assume that quantificational properties are computed at the fronted position, e. g. scope. At the base position, the thematic properties of the object are interpreted, as schematized in (3), see also Sportiche (2006: 40–41).

(3) [wh+Object]1 quantificational properties Subject Verbeng Object1 thematic properties Verbdeu

Example (4) illustrates the effect of scope marking: In both variants, the *wh*-term is related to the object of the embedded clause. In (4a), the *wh*-element only scopes over the embedded clause. Hence, the matrix clause is still declarative. In (4b), on the other hand, the *wh*-element is moved to the sentence-initial position where it scopes over the matrix and the embedded clause. Hence, the whole sentence is interrogative. Due to the identical base position of the *wh*-elements in both sentences, the difference in meaning stems from the different target positions of the moved elements.

(4) a. Also thus hat has die the Professorin professor erzählt, told *welchen* which *Mann* man der the Junge boy welchen Mann gekannt known hat. has 'Thus the professor told which man the boy knew which man.'

**2** Clearly, the verb moved at least from V-to-I in English subject-questions. Whether it also moves from I-to-C or not is of no particular interest here.

b. *Welchen* which *Mann* man hat has die the Professorin professor erzählt, told dass that der the Junge boy welchen Mann gekannt known hat? has 'Which man did the professor tell that the boy knew which man?'

Overt movement results in a situation in which we have multiple positions for interpretation but only one position in which the respective element is spelled out. This connection has been covered by all theories of movement but is handled most elegantly by the copy theory of movement: Movement creates a copy of the moved material in the target position. Usually, only one of this copies is spelled out at PF – under normal conditions the highest of all copies.

Now, we can evaluate whether there is movement only at PF without a semantic motivation. The answer is yes. It is actually very common that movement affects larger parts than only the element which bears the attracted feature. This phenomenon is known under the term *pied-piping* (going back to Ross 1967: 196– 240). As I have shown above, the nominal object [DP Det *boy*] can be interpreted in-situ, i. e. in its post-subject base position. The reason why *wh*-terms such as *which boy* move is that *which* has to move and *which* and *boy* have to be connected by some mechanism. What would be minimally needed for a structure as (5a) is something like the structure in (5b), where the indices indicate the association of the two elements.

	- b. \* *Welchen*i which hat has der the Junge boy welchen Manni man gekannt? known '\*Which did the boy know which man?'

However, frequently, we observe that movement affects larger parts than actually expected, such as in (5a). In such cases, we say that *boy* is pied-piped by the element *which*. The element *boy* does not move because it bears the attracted feature but because it stands in a relation with an element that bears such a feature. The reason why *boy* moves together with *which* is that the relation between these two elements must not be broken by destroying their local configuration. In (5a) the pied-piping element is the phrase structural head that takes its complement along. The same element may also pied-pipe an exponent of a higher structure, such as in (6). The determiner *which* is a complement to the head *mit* 'with'. Nevertheless, in German, such a preposition cannot be left behind as in (6b) but must be fronted

along with the DP, as in (6c). The rationale is the same here: The local relation between the preposition and its complement DP must not be destroyed (see Bayer & Bader 2007). Under certain conditions, however, we observe *split phenomena*, for example preposition stranding in English (Hornstein & Weinberg 1981), indicated by the grammatical translation in (6b), or *was-für*-splits in German (den Besten 1985).

	- b. \* *Welchem* which *Mann* man hat has der the Junge boy [mit with welchem Mann] telefoniert? called 'Which man did the boy talked to which man over the phone?'
	- c. *Mit* with *welchem* which *Mann* man hat has der the Junge boy [mit welchem Mann] telefoniert? called 'To which man did the boy talked to which man over the phone?'

If an element has moved but is interpreted in a position in which it has been "before", we say it has been *reconstructed*. Reconstruction has been discussed almost exclusively for phenomena including binding and scope relations (i. e. quantificational operators), and this for a good reason: binding and scope require a ccommand relation between two elements, i. e. a specific hierarchical configuration. This requirement for c-command acts as a robust diagnostic for the actual position of interpretation. Therefore, reconstruction might apply in many more cases for which we just lack a diagnostic to properly identify it (see Chomsky 1976: 332–336, Huang 1993, Bayer 1993: 23–27, and Sportiche 2006 for a comprehensive overview of reconstruction).

Classic examples to illustrate reconstruction effects are condition C violations.³ Consider example (7). In (7a) the pronoun *ihn* 'him' can be coreferent with *Uwe* because only the phrase containing the R-expression *Uwe* c-commands the pronoun. In (7b), on the other hand, the subject pronoun *er* 'he' cannot be coreferent with *Uwe* because the pronoun now asymmetrically c-commands the R-expression, which violates principle C.

(7) a. Also thus hat has [[Uwesi ] Uwe's Chefin] boss ihni/j him angerufen. called 'Thus Uwe'si boss called himi/j.'

**3** This refers to Principle C of the Binding Theory: R(eferential)-expressions, such as the proper name *Uwe*, must be free, i. e. must not be c-commanded by a coreferential element (Chomsky 1981: 101–103, 188).

b. Also thus hat has er\*i/j he [[Uwesi ] Uwe's Chefin] boss angerufen. called 'Thus, he\*i/j called Uwe'si boss.'

Now, consider example (8), in which the complex DP *Uwes Chefin* 'Uwe's boss' is fronted into Spec-CP (topcalized). In (8a), the fronting does not alter the ccommand relation between the R-expression and the object pronoun: Spec-CP as well as the subject position c-command the object position. In (8b), on the other hand, the overt position of the R-expression, Spec-CP, is not in the c-command domain of the subject pronoun *er* 'he' but only the base position of the object. Nevertheless, we observe the same coreference options as in (7b), which indicates that binding is evaluated with respect to the base position of moved constituents.

	- Uwe's boss has he called

```
'It was Uwe'si boss he*i/j called Uwe's boss.'
```
Also relevant in the context of the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis is the observation that movement which involves (parts of) predicates must obligatorily reconstruct, also in cases of phrasal A-bar movement such as VP-topicalization or topicalization of a predicative adjective (Heycock 1995, Sportiche 2006: 61–62). Hence, V2-moved finite verbs are in good company. Furthermore, Sauerland & Elbourne (2002) argue that (total) reconstruction applies only to cases of PF movement, such as pied-piping. Therefore, two aspects of the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis receive independent support: Verbs as well as pied-piped elements reconstruct, therefore it is very likely that pied-piped verbs will do so too.

Movement which takes place at both levels, on the surface (PF) and accompanied by a change in meaning (LF), triggers two interpretation processes in language comprehension. In the literature on sentence processing this has been extensively studied under the term *filler-gap dependency* (see Section 4.2.2). Oversimplified, the processor computes one set of properties in the target position and another set of properties in the base position, as illustrated for quantificational properties and thematic properties in (3) and (4).

### **3.1.3 Outlook**

The V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis actually consists of two interrelated claims: First, the lexical content of the finite verb is only pied-piped to the C-position. Second, the finite verb undergoes obligatory reconstruction, i. e. it is interpreted in its base position. In the following, I will list several empirical phenomena in support of the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis by providing independent evidence for the validity of both claims.⁴ The arguments of the first class support the claim that only the finiteness features are attracted by V2-movement and not (the lexical content of) the verb (Section 3.2). I discuss particle verbs, periphrastic-*tun* constructions, verb doubling constructions, Frisian *wer*-insertion, and complementizer agreement. They all have in common that finiteness features are expressed in the C-domain although the lexical verb (or parts of it) is present in the clause-final base position or in Spec-CP. The second class of observations, Section 3.3, contains association with focus, verbal negative polarity items, and sentential negation. These have in common that they require configurations in which the finite verb must be c-commanded by a certain operator. Crucially, only the clause-final base position but not the C-position lies within the c-command domain of the respective operators. This indicates that the meaning of the verb is interpreted in the clause-final position. Thus, these two complementary classes of arguments provide support for the two basic assumptions of the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis: Movement only targets the finiteness features and the verb has to be reconstructed for semantic interpretation.

### **3.2 The C-position: Challenging a lexical contribution at the surface position**

### **3.2.1 Particle verbs: V-to-C as movement of phonological words**

German exhibits a class of complex verbs, so called particle verbs, which consist of a verbal base and a prefixed particle, usually of prepositional origin. If V2 movement applies to a finite particle verb, only the inflected verbal base moves to the V2-position. The particle remains stranded in the base position, as illustrated in (9a) and (9b). The combination of particle and verb can be transparent,

**4** The arguments in Section 3.2 and Section 3.3 have already be published in Bayer & Freitag (2020). Some of those observation were adapted from an earlier manuscript (Bayer 2008), namely periphrastic *tun* (Section 3.2.2), verb doubling (Section 3.2.3), association with focus (Section 3.3.1), and negative polarity items (Section 3.3.2).

as in (9), and related lexemes, such as *abkaufen* (of+buy 'buy from so.'), *ankaufen* (on+buy 'purchase'), or *zukaufen* (to+buy 'buy in addition'), which are all flavors of buying. The particle verb in (10) is an example of a non-compositional meaning, *auf-führen* (on-lead) 'perform'.

	- b. … dass that Uwe Uwe einen an Apfel apple einkauft. in.buys '… that Uwe buys an apple.'

The contrast pair in (11) shows that one and the same combination of particle and verb *abhauen* (off+chop) can have a compositional meaning 'chop off' as in (11a) or it can have an idiosyncratic meaning 'leave quickly' as in (11b).

	- b. Sie she haut chops vor from der the Polizei police ab. off 'She leaves quickly from the police.'

All the examples above illustrate that V2-movement does not target the semantic word but a smaller unit. This implies that the verb cannot be interpreted in C because it is incomplete. Kremers (2009) proposes to capture the regularities of particle verb movement by mapping rules between the syntactic and the phonological structure.⁵ The relevant units for the mapping in the present discussion are phonological phrases (φ), which typically correspond to syntactic phrases, and prosodic words (ω), which typically correspond to syntactic heads. Kremers (2009) assumes that particle verbs consist of two separate prosodic words, one for the verb and one for the particle, as illustrated in (12) as an analysis of (9b). The particle verb as a whole is a phonological phrase.⁶

**5** In Chapter 4, I will introduce a similar mapping for language processing (comprehension).

**6** Kremers (2009) formulates conditions and mapping restrictions to cover the observation that particles of particle verbs behave like phrases if they are separated from the verbal base, as indi-

(12) { Uwe ω }φ { einen ω Apfel ω }φ { ein ω kauft ω }φ

The analysis of particle verbs as two separate prosodic words also offers an explanation for the observation that inflectional morphemes, such as the infinitive marker *zu* 'to', may attach directly to the verb, thereby intervening between particle and verb, as shown in (13).

(13) ohne without einen an Apfel apple ein-zu-kaufen in-to-buy 'without buying an apple'

	- a. *… dat* that *Jan* Jan *de* the *bal* ball *(vlak)* right *over* over *geschoten* shot *heeft* has *'… that John kicked the ball just over the goal'*
	- b. *… dat* that *Jan* Jan *de* the *bal* ball t*1 heeft* has *[(\*vlak)* right *over* over *geschoten]1* shot
	- c. *… dat* that *Jan* Jan *de* the *bal* ball *(vlak)* right *over* over t*1 heeft* has *[geschoten]1* shot

*(see Kremers 2009: 86)*

	- a. *… dass* that *Jan* Jan *den* the *Ball* ball *(richtig)* right *drübergeschossen* over shot *hat.* has *'… that Jan shot the ball right over (the goal)'*
	- b. *[(Richtig)* right *drüber]1* over *hat* has *Jan* Jan *den* the *Ball* ball t*1* shot. *geschossen. 'Jan shoots the ball right over (the goal).'*
	- c. *[( ?Richtig)* right *drübergeschossen]1* over shot *hat* has *Jan* Jan *den* the *Ball* ball t*1 .*

cated by adverbial modification, whereas they behave like heads if they appear adjacent to the verbal base, where they cannot be modified, as shown in (i.b) and (ii.b). Note, however, that additional movement of the particle (verb raising) is necessary to yield this contrast in (ii.b), i. e. modification of the particle is fine in the non-derived base position, as in (ii.a) and (iii.a). The respective contrasts in German, however, seem to be very subtle if at all present, as indicated in (iii).

The observation that V2-movement only targets the verbal base of particle verbs can now be expressed by a mapping rule, as in (14). This rule states that the Cposition is a head position that may only be filled by a single head that maps onto a single prosodic word (ω). There is no room for two prosodic words or a phonological phrase. Hence the particle must remain in its underlying position.

(14) C ↔ ω (Kremers 2009: 92)

In this section, I have pointed out two generalizations concerning particle verbs: First, the separability of particle verbs by V2-movement is independent of semantic compositionality. Second, V2-movement targets only the smallest possible unit, i. e. a prosodic word. These two generalizations indicate that V2-movement is a semantics-free operation based on morphophonological properties (more on the perspective of interpreting particle verbs is discussed in Section 4.3.4). The conclusion about particle verbs is in line with the V2-Reconstruction Hypothesis in (1): V2-movement is a mechanism to bring finiteness features into the C-position. Aspects of the lexical verb are of no importance. Consequently, the meaning of particle verbs, compositional or idiomatic, is interpreted in the clause-final base position.

### **3.2.2 Semantically empty host I: Periphrastic** *tun*

German exhibits several constructions with the verb *tun* 'do'. Very common are light verb constructions as in (15).

	- b. Leid sorrow tun do 'be/feel sorry'

Despite these expressions, certain registers and dialectal variants also allow the *tun*-periphrasis. In such constructions, *tun* cooccurs with another verbal element and functions as a finite auxiliary (Fischer 2001). It has been noted that, in some dialectal variants, the *tun*-periphrasis may be used to express conjunctive and to mark aspect (Abraham & Fischer 1998, Kölligan 2004, Schwarz 2004). I will exclude those cases from the discussion and focus solely on the indicative use.

The *tun*-periphrasis is more frequent with *tun* in V2-position⁷, as in (16a), but is also acceptable in V-final position, as in (16b).

	- b. Ich I glaube, believe dass that der the Junge boy gerade currently die the Wand wall streichen paint tut. does 'I believe that boy is currently painting the wall.'

It must be noted that the periphrastic construction is a fully optional variant⁸ to an inflected lexical verb. Abraham & Fischer (1998) assume that the *tun*-insertion is primarily a means of receiving neutral accent on the clause-final verb. This explains why *tun* appears more frequently in V2-position than in V-final position. Accordingly the *tun*-periphrasis is quite unacceptable in combination with periphrastic tense forms that already involve an auxiliary (Abraham & Fischer 1998: 37).