Germanic V-in-C: Some Riddles
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Hans-Martin Gärtner
Abstract
1. Introduction
Usually, the Germanic languages are classified syntactically as V2-languages (see König and van der Auwera 1994). This is clearly due to the fact that they coincide wrt predominance of V-in-C clauses in root positions. Given this V-in-C/root correlation, it is highly plausible that a proper linguistic account of the exact distribution of Germanic V-in-C should at some level of analysis make appeal to the one characteristic property of root clauses, i.e. illocutionary force potential. Such an intuition has repeatedly guided research on V2, work inspired by Hooper & Thompson (1973) such as Andersson (1975) being among the early examples. However, this kind of work remained on a rather informal level, so Hubert Truckenbrodt (henceforth HT) deserves full credit for having put forth an explicit and non-trivial proposal for the analysis of German V-in-C that integrates syntax, discourse semantics, and pragmatics. Integration is guaranteed by so-called “context indices” and formulated as follows (cf. HT's (17)).
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- On the semantic motivation of syntactic verb movement to C in German
- How far can pragmatic mechanisms take us?
- On Truckenbrodt on Interrogatives
- Types, Moods, and Force Potentials: Towards a Comprehensive Account of German Sentence Mood Meanings
- Dependent Contexts in Grammar and in Discourse: German Verb Movement from the Perspective of the Theory of Mood Selection
- Is German V-to-C Movement Really Semantically Motivated? Some Empirical Problems
- Germanic V-in-C: Some Riddles
- Replies to the comments by Gärtner, Plunze and Zimmermann, Portner, Potts, Reis, and Zaefferer
- Mimetic gemination in Japanese: A challenge for Evolutionary Phonology
Articles in the same Issue
- On the semantic motivation of syntactic verb movement to C in German
- How far can pragmatic mechanisms take us?
- On Truckenbrodt on Interrogatives
- Types, Moods, and Force Potentials: Towards a Comprehensive Account of German Sentence Mood Meanings
- Dependent Contexts in Grammar and in Discourse: German Verb Movement from the Perspective of the Theory of Mood Selection
- Is German V-to-C Movement Really Semantically Motivated? Some Empirical Problems
- Germanic V-in-C: Some Riddles
- Replies to the comments by Gärtner, Plunze and Zimmermann, Portner, Potts, Reis, and Zaefferer
- Mimetic gemination in Japanese: A challenge for Evolutionary Phonology
