The assertion analysis of declarative Verb Second
This chapter addresses the assertion analysis of Mainland Scandinavian embedded declarative V2 clauses. These clauses are identified by having the finite verb preceding all sentence adverbials and/or having a non-subject in initial position. Whereas this word order is mainly found in that-clauses embedded under certain predicates in modern Mainland Scandinavian, it was more generally allowed in Old Scandinavian. The Old Scandinavian word order arguably involved verb movement to the inflectional domain. In modern Mainland Scandinavian it necessarily involves movement to the C-domain, which means that embedded V2 clauses have root properties. On this analysis, they are asserted, and both the illocutionary force and the V2 order are consequences of the presence of a Force head. For most speakers of modern Mainland Scandinavian, direct or indirect assertions can be embedded whenever they are compatible with the semantics of the matrix clause.