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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13: Selected papers from ‘Going Romance’ 29, Nijmegen
Edited by Janine Berns, Haike Jacobs and Dominique Nouveau
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 13] 2018
► pp. 315–336

Occitan, verb second and the Medieval Romance word order debate

| University of Oxford

This study presents a discussion of the word order properties of Old Occitan, a Medieval Romance language which remains under-studied in comparison to many of its sister languages. I argue that it was a V2 system and in particular that the locus of the V2 property was a low left-peripheral head, namely Fin, yielding a descriptively ‘relaxed’ V2 grammar, with systematic V-to-Fin0 movement but widespread verb-third or more orders. Data are presented from a wide range of related properties that show that Occitan occupies a unique position within the wider typology of V2 languages.

Article outline
  • 1.Background
    • 1.1Old Occitan
    • 1.2Issues in the Medieval Romance V2 typology
  • 2.A V2 grammar
    • 2.1Verb placement
    • 2.2The left periphery
      • 2.2.1V2 clauses
      • 2.2.2CP Information-Structure
      • 2.2.3Verb third
      • 2.2.4A note on si
      • 2.2.5Null constituents
    • 2.3Clause-type asymmetries
  • 3.Occitan in the V2 typology
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 July 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.13.19wol
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