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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
Article outline
  • 1.A general West-Germanic problem with V-clusters
  • 2.V-cluster directionality in West-Germanic
  • 3.The IPP in West-Germanic
  • 4.The Afrikaans verbal paradigm
  • 5.Triple V-clusters with modal and non-modal verbs in Afrikaans
  • 6.Afrikaans past tense markings with modal verbs
  • 7.The order of acquisition steps in Afrikaans
    • 7.1The acquisition of binary V-clusters
    • 7.2The acquisition of ‘triple’ V-clusters in Afrikaans
  • 8.The morphological status of sentence-final het
  • 9.The suffixation of het in Type II V-clusters
  • 10.Concluding remarks
  • Note
  • References
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Published online: 23 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.34.06van
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