Optimality, markedness, and word order in German

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to develop an approach to free-word-order structures in German that reconciles the findings of two different lines of research: competition-based models that center upon the interaction of factors like definiteness, animacy, case, and focus on the one hand, and optimality-theoretic syntax with its violable and ranked constraints on the other. The analysis relies on the existence of a syntactic scrambling operation. The major claims are as follows: (i) Scrambling is triggered by a subhierarchy of violable and ranked linearization constraints. (ii) Optimality under at least one linearization constraint results in grammaticality, optimality under the whole subhierarchy results in an unmarked structure (unmarked structures do not correspond to D-structures, as is often assumed). (iii) The distinction between subhierarchies and matrix hierarchies in optimality theory parallels the traditional distinction between weak and strong rules. It accounts for the difference between weak pronoun fronting to a Wackernagel position, which results in a fixed order, and scrambling to VP, which does not. (iv) Language-specific variation with respect to scrambling options is due to constraint reranking.