PP-over-V meets Universal 20

Abstract

It has proven hard to force a decision between rival analyses of Universal 20. This is because new typological data are scarce, and the number of syntactic tests applicable in the noun phrase is relatively small. I therefore consider a related set of facts that involve language-internal word order variation in the verb phrase. I first show that the pattern of grammatical and ungrammatical orders in Dutch verb phrases containing three PPs closely matches the pattern of attested and unattested orders in the noun phrase. I then use the distribution of the particle pas ‘only’ to argue that PP extraposition results from variation in the linearization of sister nodes. This means that the symmetric account of Universal 20 in Abels and Neeleman (Syntax 15:25–74, 2012) extends to the Dutch data, but the antisymmetric account in Cinque (Linguist Inquiry 36:315–332, 2005) does not.