This paper provides new evidence that verb cluster formation in West Germanic takes place post-syntactically. Contrary to some previous accounts, I argue that cluster formation involves linearly adjacent morphosyntactic words and not syntactic sister nodes. The empirical evidence is drawn from Swiss German verb doubling constructions where intriguing asymmetries arise between ascending and descending orders. The approach additionally solves the cluster puzzle with extraposition and topicalization, generates all of the crosslinguistically attested six orders in the verbal complex and correctly predicts which orders are penetrable in which positions. On a more general level, the paper provides arguments for a derivational treatment of verb cluster formation and order variation and adduces important evidence in favor of a right-branching VP.
2021. Analyzing free variation with harmony – A case study of verb-cluster serialization. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 39:3 ► pp. 407 ff.
Rolle, Nicholas
2020. In support of an OT-DM model. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 38:1 ► pp. 201 ff.
Schallert, Oliver
2020. A Note on Misplaced or Wrongly Attachedzuin German. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 32:1 ► pp. 43 ff.
Salzmann, Martin
2019. On the limits of variation in Continental West-Germanic verb clusters: evidence from VP-stranding, extraposition and displaced morphology for the existence of clusters with 213 order. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 22:1 ► pp. 55 ff.
Salzmann, Martin
2019. Displaced morphology in German verb clusters: an argument for post-syntactic morphology. The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 22:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
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