A construction-based cross-linguistic analysis of V2 word order

Abstract

Verb second (V2) word order is determined by considering the absolute position of clausal constituents. Previous accounts of such word order in HPSG have been developed for individual V2 languages (predominantly German) but are often not cross-linguistically applicable. I propose a set of generalized mechanisms in linearization-based SBCG which accounts for cross-linguistic V2 data by use of: (1) a simple two-valued feature rather than many-typed topological domains, (2) domain compaction, and (3) constructionally-determined domain positions. Not only does this analysis account for V2 placement, but it can also model verb third (V3) placement and other positionally-stipulated word orders.