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Article published In:
Romance Parsed Corpora
Edited by Christina Tortora, Beatrice Santorini and Frances Blanchette
[Linguistic Variation 18:1] 2018
► pp. 144–196
Regular article

Merging verb cluster variation

| Universiteit Leiden
| Nederlandse Taalunie
| Meertens Instituut

In this paper we argue that verb clusters in Dutch varieties are merged and linearized in fully ascending (1-2-3) or fully descending (3-2-1) orders. We argue that verb clusters that deviate from these orders involve non-verbal material: adjectival participles, or nominal infinitives. As a result, our approach does not involve any unmotivated movements that are specific for verb clusters.

Support for our analysis comes from (i) the interpretation of verb clusters; (ii) the fact that order variation depends on the types of verbs involved, which can be explained by selectional requirements of the verbs; and (iii) the geographic co-occurrence patterns of various orders. First, the 1-3-2 and 3-1-2 orders are argued to be ascending orders with a non-verbal 3. Indeed these orders occur in grammars that have ascending, rather than descending, verb clusters. Secondly, the 1-3-2 order is argued to be an interrupted V1-V2 cluster with a non-verbal 3. Indeed, this order is most common in the region where non-verbal material can interrupt the verb cluster.

Our analysis of word order variation in verb clusters in terms of principles of grammar is further supported by an experiment in which we asked a large number of speakers distributed over the Dutch language area to rank all logically possible orders, including orders that are not common in their own variety of Dutch. The results demonstrate that speakers apply their syntactic knowledge to rank verb cluster orders that they do not use themselves. We argue that this knowledge cannot be due to familiarity with the various orders.

Keywords: verb clusters, varieties of Dutch and Frisian, base-generation, merge, language variation, adjectival participles, nominal infinitives, particles, geographic distribution
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Verb cluster formation
  • 3.Two-verb clusters
  • 4.Three-verb clusters
    • 4.1Clusters with two modal auxiliaries
    • 4.2Clusters with a modal auxiliary and a perfect auxiliary
    • 4.3Clusters with a perfect auxiliary and an aspectual auxiliary
    • 4.4A comparison of the three types of 3-verb clusters
  • 5.The analysis of the order in the verb cluster
    • 5.1The order V2-V1-V3 does not exist (14i)
    • 5.2The order V3-V1-V2 does not exist (14vi)
    • 5.3The order V2-V3-V1 does not exist (14iv)
    • 5.4The orders V1-V2-V3 and V3-V2-V1
  • 6.V1-V3-V2
    • 6.1Participles
    • 6.2Nominalization
    • 6.3Summary of V1-V3-V2
  • 7.Verb cluster intuitions
    • 7.1Method
    • 7.2Scores for verb cluster orders
    • 7.3Familiarity
    • 7.4Grammar
      • V2-V3-V1 and V2-V1-V3
      • V1-V2-V3 and V3-V2-V1
      • V3-V1-V2 and V1-V3-V2
  • 8.Summary & conclusion
    • 8.1Summary
    • 8.2Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.00008.bar
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