Cracks in the bottleneck:
Verb-third and the polyoccupation of the initial slot in verb-second languages
Insights from Germanic and beyond
Paris
February 16th - 17th, 2023
Convenors: Sarah Harchaoui (Sorbonne Université) & Pierre-Yves Modicom (U. Lyon 3 Jean Moulin)
CALL FOR PAPERS
Deadline for submissions: October 15th, 2022
Contact: conference.V2V3 [AT] protonmail.com
PDF VERSION OF THE CALL: DOWNLOAD HERE
With the exception of English and its varieties, all Present-Day Germanic languages display some kind of verb-second
(V2) rule, according to which the finite verbal form has to be put in the second position of the clause, at least in
declarative utterances and wh-questions. But the exact contours of the V2 rule vary strongly from one language
to the other.
For instance, in some languages, the selection of the pre-finiteconstituent is totally blind to whether it is the subject
argument or not (e.g. High German), whereas others make a significant difference (e.g. Icelandic).
But above all, the “bottleneck” (originally a theory-internal label, going back to Haegeman 1996) demanding that one
and only one constituent be placed before the finite verb is not equally respected in all Germanic varieties.
Previous cross-Germanic insights into these V3 phenomena can be found, among others, in Freywald et al. (2015),
Walkden (2017), Alexiadou & Lohndal (2018), or in some of the studies collected in Meklenborg & Wolfe (2021).
The present conference is concerned with all kinds of violations of this “bottleneck” in any variety of Germanic, present
and past (including former V2 stages of English). We warmly encourage cross-Germanic comparison, studies from a
historical perspective, sociolinguistic analyses, and investigations centred on language contact including code-
switching. V3 has been extensively mentioned in syntactic descriptions of urban vernaculars, and comparison with
other varieties may prove fruitful.
The conference is open to contributions from all theoretical frameworks.
We also welcome contrastive proposals comparing Germanic and non-Germanic V2 languages, such as
Medieval Romance languages or subsisting V2 varieties in Romance; Estonian; or any other language, regardless of
their family and location. Here is a first, non-exhaustive list of issues to be addressed during the conference.
1. Syntax, information-structure, history and sociolinguistics of verb-third-patterns in Germanic
At least two verb-third constructions are attested both in North and West Germanic languages.
A. Adverbial – Subject – finite verb
(1) Nå de får betale.(Norw.)
“Now they have to pay.”
(2) Då alla började hata henne.(Sw.)
“Then everybody started to hate her.”
(3) Dann wir sind gegangen.(High German) [(1) to (3) quoted from Freywald et al. 2015:82]
“Then we left.”
(4) En dan hij gaat weg.(Dutch) [Appel 1984, quoted from Freywald et al 2015:86]
“And then he’s going away.”
Data from Freywald et al. (2015) suggest that this pattern is much more restricted in Dutch urban vernaculars than in
the corresponding N, S, G varieties. Wiese & Müller (2018) also show that this pattern, while it is widely attested in
urban vernaculars, may not be an innovation. The same pattern is well-attested in the West Flemish variety of Dutch
(see recent discussion in Haegeman & Greco 2018), independently of the sociolinguistic context of urban vernaculars.
The same seems to hold in colloquial Danish (Jørgensen 2016). Even though research on the acquisition of V2
suggests that language contact may facilitate the use of the Adv – S – V pattern (Johansen 2008), just like
code-switching (Kahan-Newman 2015), the role of language contact in the rise of V3 is a matter of debate (compare
Walkden 2017, Wiese & Müller 2018). Research drawing on sociolinguistically diverse data and addressing this
sociolinguistic diversity is all the more welcome. But other factors also need to be addressed, such as a possible
privileged access of subject pronouns to this pattern (as opposed to heavier NP/DP subjects).
B. Topic – High adverb – finite verb
An adverb fulfilling a text-structuring function can be inserted between the initial constituent (a topic) and the finite
verb. However, beyond surface order, the attestations of thus pattern display diverging properties throughout the
Germanic family. In High German, this pattern is attested in contexts of topic change; in Swedish, it also selects
non-contrastive framesetting topics:
(5) Der Juniaufstand ist Ausdruck spontaner Empörung; ihm fehlt Führung und Organisation. Der Gegenschlag
indessen ist ebenso kühl kalkuliert wie brutal.
(High German; quoted from Breindl 2008: 35)
“The June Uprising is an expression of spontaneous indignation; it is deprived of leadership and organisation. The
retaliation, on the other hand, is both well-calculated and brutal.” (contrastive topic)
(6) Hon kanskekommer i kväll.(Egerland 1998:1)
“Maybe she’s coming tonight.” (non-contrastive topic)
In Norwegian and Swedish, this phenomenon is particularly well-attested for the adverbial så (Sollid & Eide 2007,
Nordström 2010), which may imply that some resumptive forms may have historically acquired a specific access to
V3 constructions:
(7) Jag anlände till Rom och sedan såtog jag in på hotell.
(Swedish; quoted from Egerland 2021:364)
“I landed in Rome, then I checked into a hotel.”
This raises the major question whether resumptive adverbials and personal pronouns stacked immediately before the
finite verb should be treated separately, even when they are not clitics (see Jørgensen 2016).
2. Verb-third beyond verb-third?
A. “Seemingly verb-third” constructions
Several syntactic patterns reminiscent of V3 have drawn the attention of grammarians and have often been treated as
less obvious violations of V2. Müller (2013) calls them “apparent polyoccupation”.
Notably, the possibility to stack circumstancial adverbials in the pre-verbal slot is well-attested throughout V2 languages.
(8) Vor wenigen Wochen im Deutschen Theater sagte ich: „Unser Ziel muß sein, daß die Polizei friedliche
Demonstranten schützt und damit den Namen Volkspolizei rechtfertigt.“
(High German; quoted from Müller 2003:38)
“A few weeks ago, at the German Theater, I said: ‘Our goal must be that the police protect peaceful protesters, and
thus deserve the name of People’s Police’.”
(9) I går på jobbet var det olidligt hur varmt det var.
(Swedish TenTen 2014, item 1652707550)
“Yesterday at work, it was unbearably hot.”
Which precise rules govern this kind of stacking? Should this pattern be analysed as a violation of V2? If not, may the
syntactic analysis of this pattern help us explain more critical V3 phenomena? The same questions may be raised for
other cases of “apparent polyoccupation” (Müller 2003 and subsequent) involving the fronting of several constituents
from the VP:
(10) Eindeutig für die Existenz von Doppeltopikalisierungen spricht das Beispiel (79a).
(High German; quoted from Müller 2003:41)
“Example 79a speaks unequivocally for the existence of double topicalizations.”
Further phenomena may also be investigated, such as the behaviour of focus-sensitive adverbials and particles taking
another constituent in their scope and coexisting with that constituent in the pre-finite slot:
(11) Zelfs Janwas gisteren aanwezig. (Foolen et al. 2009: 51)
“Even Jan was there yesterday.”
While many scholars have been keen on insisting that the two constituents should be counted as one phrase, others,
such as Büring & Hartmann (2001), have claimed the focus particle is an adverb of its own, not merged with its partner
and thus triggering V3.
B. Embedded V2, stylistic fronting and object shift in subordinate clauses
Some Germanic languages display OV order in subordinate clauses (Dutch, High German), others, such as Yiddish,
also front the finite verb in conjunctional clauses. The issue of embedded V2 is a much-debated one in Nordic
languages, which display various possibilities of verb placement in subordinate clauses (see Julien 2007, Petersson
2009, Wiklund et al 2007, Vikner 2020, among many others). As it seems, embedded V2 is at least an option for some
Scandinavian languages, where it is plausibly a variety of main-clause phenomena.
(12) Madsvåg mener ati framtidenkan ikke alle drive med alt.
(Norwegian, quoted from Julien 2007)
“Madsvåg thinks that in the future, not everyone will be able to cope with everything.”
Can V3 patterns observed in main clauses be detected in such embedded contexts, too?
The stance adopted regarding regarding verb placement in subordinate clauses determines the analysis of “stylistic
fronting”, the placement of constituents other than the subject before the finite verb in non-verb-final embedded
constructions, be it at the subject’s expense, or additionally to it.
(13) a. *At tomaterspiser Johan ofte overrasker de fleste.
(intended: ‘That John often eats tomatoes surprises most people.”)
b. Hun siger at tomaterspiser Johan ofte.
“She says that John often eats tomatoes.”
c. Hun siger at Johanoftespiser tomater.(Danish, quoted from Vikner 2020:377)
“She says that John often eats tomatoes.”
If we discard the V2 hypothesis for Scandinavian embedded clauses, we still have to account for the possibility of
“stylistic fronting” What can we learn from the comparison of the pre-verbal slot in embedded clauses and in main
clauses?
Finally, some Germanic languages and dialects follow a V2 rule in several sentence types, most prominently in
wh-questions. Here, too, modern research has highlighted the presence of V3 phenomena (Westergaard &
Vangsnes 2005). Contributions addressing the licensing of V3 in non-declarative contexts or comparing a variety of
sentence moods are highly welcome, as well.
The working language of the conference will be English.
Selected references
Breindl, Eva. 2011. Nach Rom freilich führen viele Wege. Zur Interaktion von Informationsstruktur, Diskursstruktur und
Prosodie bei der Besetzung der Nacherstposition. In: Ferraresi, Gisella (ed.), Konnektoren im Deutschen und im
Sprachvergleich. Beschreibung und grammatische Analyse. Tübingen: Narr. 17-56.
Egerland, Verner. 1998. On verb-second violations in Swedish and the hierarchical ordering of adverbs. Working
Papers in Scandinavian Syntax 61. 1-22.
Egerland, Verner. 2021. The grammaticalisation of SIC: On narrative particles in Romance and Scandinavian. In
Meklenborg, Christine & Sam Wolfe (eds.), Continuity and variation in Germanic and Romance.Oxford: Oxford
University Press. 350-369.
Ekberg, Lena, Toril Opsahl & Heike Wiese. 2015. Functional gains: a cross-linguistic case study of three particles in
Swedish, Norwegian and German. In: Nortier, Jacomine & Bente Svendsen (eds.), Language, youth and identity in the
21st century: Linguistic practices across urban spaces. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. 93-116.
Foolen, Ad, Richard van Gerrevink, Lotte Hogeweg & Peia Prawiro-Atmodjo. 2009. The placement of focus particles in
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John Benjamins. 51–63.
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of novel information-structural effects? Evidence from Norwegian, Swedish, German and Dutch. In: Nortier, Jacomine &
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Ganuza, Natalia. 2008. Syntactic variation in the Swedish of adolescents in multilingual urban settings: Subject-verb
order in declaratives, questions and subordinate clauses. PhD dissertation, University of Stockholm.
Haegeman, Liliane. 1996. Verb second, the split CP and null subjects in early Dutch finite clauses.Geneva Generative
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Haegeman, Liliane & Ciro Greco. 2018. West Flemish V3 and the interaction of syntax and discourse. Journal of
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Holmberg, Anders. 2020. On the bottleneck hypothesis of V2 in Swedish. In: Woods, Rebecca & Sam Wolfe (eds.),
Rethinking verb second.Oxford: Oxford University Press. 40-60.
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