Verb positions and basic clause structure in Germanic

This article describes the verb-second phenomenon in Germanic languages and its analysis within the tradition of generative grammar from the beginnings up to current minimalism. Verb-second refers to a word order pattern where the finite verb appears to the immediate right of the first constituent. In canonical verb-second languages (German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Frisian, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish), verb-second is limited to main clauses, yielding a main-embedded clause asymmetry, though embedded clauses containing the main assertion of the sentence may also display the verb-second phenomenon, sometimes limited to colloquial varieties. In other verb-second languages (Icelandic, Yiddish), verb-second occurs in both main and embedded clauses. In the analysis of the verb-second pattern in generative grammar, the verb-second position is a derived position, obtained by the finite verb via head-movement. In the standard analysis, the derivation involves two ordered steps: 1, verb-movement to the complementizer position C, and 2, XP-movement of an arbitrary constituent to the specifier position of CP. The article discusses the validity of this standard analysis from the perspective of Government and Binding theory and Minimalism, arguing that step 1 must be thought of as following step 2, that verb-movement may target various landing sites depending on the construction, and that step 2 as a random XP-movement operation needed to satisfy a ‘verb second constraint’ can be abandoned altogether. In this context, views on phrase structure relevant to the syntax of the Germanic languages are also discussed, hinging on the question of whether the standard CP-IP structure of the clause can be applied to Germanic, and if so, whether IP should be head-initial or head-final. More recent developments, assuming a split CP-structure, are also discussed with a view to their relevance to the analysis of the verb-second pattern. Finally, the article touches on a range of deviations from the verb-second pattern, including verb-first and verb-third word orders, doubling phenomena (including complementizer agreement), and embedded verb-second.