Word order

Abstract

The focus of this article will be on the behaviour of clause-level constituents, arguments and adverbials in the so-called middle field of German. German's middle field is a good object for studying clausal word order. Here, the number of word order alternatives is very high; nevertheless, there seems to be a basic word order. The main topics are the means to determine this basic order and a discussion of the factors which (presumably) cause abandonment of the basic order.