Article published in:
Linguistics in the Netherlands 2017
Edited by Sander Lestrade and Bert Le Bruyn
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 34] 2017
► pp. 77–91

Afrikaans directionality switch in ‘triple’ V-clusters with the auxiliary het

| Utrecht University
The general perspective of the paper is that all (dis)harmonic branching orders within the West-Germanic V-clusters imply a different categorization by the acquisition procedure that should be independently motivated. More specific, the paper discusses the directionality switch with the temporal auxiliary het (‘have’) in Afrikaans. Afrikaans has a right-branching V-cluster 1-2-3. The directionality switches in subordinate clauses when V1 is the auxiliary het, which seemingly gives rise to the a-typical order 2-3-1 [[leer 2 swem 3] het 1]. V2 is in this case an IPP (Infinitivus-pro-participio) infinitive. I propose to derive the directionality switch as a matter of category assignment by an acquisition procedure that is unaware of underlying structure followed by movements. I argue that sentence-final het has been reanalyzed as a morphological suffix on the V3. This leads to a simplification of the apparent 2-3-1 V-cluster into a binary 1–2 V-cluster [leer 1 [swem het]2].
Keywords: (dis)harmonic order, V-clusters, IPP, Afrikaans 2-3-1, acquisition procedure
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Published online: 23 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.34.06van

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Afrikaans directionality switch in ‘triple’ V-clusters with the auxiliary het
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