The scope of embedded Verb Second in modern Yiddish

2020 ◽  
pp. 665-681
Author(s):  
Molly Diesing ◽  
Beatrice Santorini
Keyword(s):  
Native Speaker ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Finite Verb

Embedded Verb Second (V2) clauses have been analysed as embedded main clauses or in terms of selection. This chapter presents data from both corpora and native speaker judgements showing that Verb Second order in embedded clauses in Yiddish goes well beyond what can be explained by either of the above approaches, with V2 possible and attested in interrogatives as well as declaratives. Adjunction of adverbials to V2 clauses is possible as well, yielding orders with the finite verb in third position (V3). But V3 resulting from lack of verb movement, as is seen in Mainland Scandinavian and (optionally) in Icelandic, is not found.

Verb-third in Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-98
Author(s):  
Katerina Somers
Keyword(s):  
Old High German ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
The Status ◽  
Finite Verb

Abstract This article investigates the status of so-called verb-final declaratives in Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch, with a focus on whether clauses in which there is no apparent subordinator and the finite verb occurs later than the expected verb-first or verb-second position can be treated as verb-third (V3) clauses, as they are defined for Old High German in works such as Axel (2007) and Tomaselli (1995). Drawing on a set of 746 clauses, I argue that there is no evidence that the finite verbs in these clauses have undergone verb movement, as is claimed in the aforementioned works, nor are the asyndetic verb-late clauses with a verb in surface third position consistent with the patterns identified in the generative literature for the V3 type.

scholarly journals INTERACTIONS BETWEEN VERB MOVEMENT AND AGREEMENT IN KARITIANA (TUPI STOCK)

2003 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana R. Storto
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Transitive Verb ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Constituent Order ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Agreement Morphology

Este artigo tem como objetivo mostrar que o Karitiana, uma língua da família Arikém, tronco Tupi, falada em Rondônia, Brasil, é uma língua V-2, que apresenta movimento obrigatório do verbo para a posição de complementizador (C) nas sentenças matrizes. O verbo transitivo, invariavelmente, ocorre em primeira ou segunda posição em relação a seus argumentos nas sentenças principais, quando aparece, obrigatoriamente, marcado por tempo e concordância. Já nas sentenças subordinadas, o verbo aparece nú na última posição. Apresentamos evidências de movimento verbal ao discutirmos a ordem dos constituintes, a posição dos núcleos funcionais nas sentenças, e as possibilidades de adjunção adverbial na língua. Abstract This paper aims to show that Karitiana, a language of the Arikém family, Tupi stock, spoken in Rondônia, Brazil, is a verb-second language, which presents obligatory movement of the verb to complementizer position (C) in root clauses. The transitive verb, invariably, occurs in first or second position with respect to its arguments in matrix clauses, when it is marked by tense and agreement morphology. In embedded clauses, the verb is bare and occurs in final position. We present evidence of verb movement through a discussion of constituent order, the position of functional heads in the sentence, and adverb adjunction possibilities.

scholarly journals Medieval English root clauses

Literator ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-154
Author(s):  
H. W. Broekman
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Old English ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Complementary Distribution ◽  
Embedded Clauses ◽  
Finite Verb

The movement operation Verb Second moves the finite verb from its base-generated position in VP to C via the I node within the Chomsky (1986) framework. As the finite verb and the complementiser are in complementary distribution, the above predicts that, contrary to fact, Verb Second is not possible in embedded clauses. However, in Frisian and Swedish Verb Second does occur in embedded clauses. This entails that a lexical complementiser does not always prevent a finite verb from undergoing Verb Second. 'The aim of this paper is to provide a survey of Old English and Middle English root clauses particularly with respect to Verb Second. Old English does not strictly conform to Verb Second in declarative root clauses. In Old English finite verbs also occur in first position and in third position in declarative root clauses. A comparison with Icelandic data will be provided as this language displays all three verb placements in declarative head main clauses as well.

scholarly journals The Welsh of Jesus and Job: Verb-second in Middle Welsh

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Borsley
Keyword(s):  
Second Order ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Finite Clause ◽  
Finite Verb

Middle Welsh is a VSO language with the verb before the subject in all kinds of finite clause. However, positive declarative main clauses normally show verb-second order with a constituent of some kind before the finite verb. There are questions about the nature of this restriction. There are also questions about subject-initial sentences, which show surprising agreement properties, whether the subject is a topic or a focused constituent. All these questions can be given plausible answers within HPSG.

The assertion analysis of declarative Verb Second

2020 ◽  
pp. 265-280
Author(s):  
Marit Julien
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Illocutionary Force ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Matrix Clause ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Root Properties ◽  
Finite Verb

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.

Verb Second in Medieval Romance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Wolfe
Keyword(s):  
Old French ◽  
Romance Languages ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Medieval Romance ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Clausal Structure ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Null Argument

This book provides the first book-length study of the controversial subject of Verb Second and related properties in a range of Medieval Romance languages. Both qualitative and quantitative data are examined and analysed from Old French, Occitan, Sicilian, Venetian, Spanish, and Sardinian to assess whether the languages were indeed Verb Second languages. The book argues that unlike most modern Romance varieties, V-to-C movement is a point of continuity across all the medieval varieties, but that there are rich patterns of synchronic and diachronic variation in the medieval period which have not been noted before. These include differences in the syntax–pragmatics mapping, the locus of verb movement, the behaviour of clitic pronouns, the syntax of subject positions, matrix/embedded asymmetries, and the null argument properties of the languages in question. The book outlines a detailed formal cartographic analysis both of both the synchronic patterns attested and of the diachronic evolution of Romance clausal structure.

Two locations for negation

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 205-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadaf Munshi ◽  
Rajesh Bhatt
Keyword(s):  
Verb Second ◽  
High Position ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Finite Verb ◽  
Structural Positions

Kashmiri has two structural positions for negation: a high position associated with focus and a low position associated with tense. In verb second environments, the difference between these two positions is neutralized on the surface and irrespective of the location where negation is generated, it appears as a suffix on the finite verb. But in non-verb second environments such as conditionals and correlatives the two negations can be teased apart. In these environments, the high negation appears as a suffix on material such as relative phrases and the conditional marker while the low negation appears as a suffix on the finite verb. The high vs. low distinction has semantic implications: in certain environments where the negation is arguably ‘expletive’, negation can only be high.

scholarly journals On the Acquisition of Word Order in WH-Questions in theTromsø Dialect

Nordlyd ◽  
10.7557/12.48 ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marit Richardsen Westergaard
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
Wh Questions

This article reports on a study of three children acquiring a dialect of Norwegian which allows two different word orders in certain types of WH-questions, verb second (V2) and and verb third (V3). The latter is only allowed after monosyllabic WH-words, while the former, which is the result of verb movement, is the word order found in all other main clauses in the language. It is shown that both V2 and V3 are acquired extremely early by the children in the study (before the age of two), and that subtle distinctions between the two orders with respect to information structure are attested from the beginning. However, it is argued that V3 word order, which should be ìsimplerî than the V2 structure as it does not involve verb movement, is nevertheless acquired slightly later in its full syntactic form. This is taken as an indication that the V3 structure is syntactically more complex, and possibly also more marked.

Verb-movement

2019 ◽  
pp. 342-418
Author(s):  
Ian Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Event Semantics ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
Verb Movement ◽  
History Of

The chapter begins with a very brief excursus into Davidsonian event semantics, explaining the basic motivation for positing event variables, as well as ‘separation’ of θ‎-roles from predicates. It then develops the TP-Denotation Hypothesis, i.e. the idea that events are denoted through the Tense feature. This naturally leads to a tripartite typology of Tense vs No-Tense languages, and Weak-Tense vs Strong-Tense languages. Strong-Tense (Romance), Weak-Tense (mainly English), and No-Tense (Chinese) languages are illustrated. The chapter then turns to other examples of cross-linguistic variation in verb-movement: V-initial languages and Germanic verb-second, where a novel labelling-based proposal for certain core properties is developed. The proposals regarding the changes affecting the ‘inversion’ system through the history of English made by Biberauer & Roberts are then summarized. The chapter concludes with a parameter hierarchy for Tense.

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