An Information Structural Account of German Integrated Verb Second Clauses

Abstract

In this paper, we present data of German integrated verb second clauses and verb final relative clauses that seem problematic for a compositional analysis. We show that although the compositional analysis of restrictive relative clauses in [Janssen, T. M. (1982). In: Groenendijk et al. (eds.) Formals Methods in the study of Language (pp. 237-276). Amsterdam: UvA publications] can be adapted, it cannot be sustained due to overgeneration and must be considered unintuitive in light of the paratactic syntactic analysis for the verb second clauses from Gärtner [(2001). Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics, 3, 97-141]. Hence we present a conceptually simpler analysis along the lines of [Endriss and Gärtner, 2005 In: F.-J. d'Avis (ed.) Deutsche Syntax: Empirie und Theorie, (pp. 195-220). Göteborg], which makes use of information structural properties of the involved clauses. We conclude with a brief discussion on the compositional status of such an approach.

Against the root analysis of subject contact relatives in English

“…Pursuing this line of thinking, Henry (1995) and den Dikken (2005) go so far as to propose a syntactic analysis according to which what looks like the relative clause in the SCR constitutes the root clause. One of the arguments used by den Dikken (2005) in support of his analysis is the interpretive similarity of English SCR and Dutch so called 'V2 relatives' or 'integrated relatives', henceforth labelled V2R (Gärtner, 2001a(Gärtner, , 2001bEndriss and Gärtner, 2005;Ebert et al, 2006;Zwart, 2005).…”

“…Apart from exploring the interpretive properties of English SCR, den Dikken's (2005) analysis of SCR was also based on the observation that SCR are interpretively similar to the Dutch example in (23a), which also instantiates a topiccomment articulation (see Lambrecht, 1988, Ebert et al, 2006. (23) a.…”

“…Following den Dikken (2005), we refer to the clause introduced by die 'that' in (23a) as V2 relatives, henceforth V2R. 7 Both Dutch and German display these patterns (see Lambrecht, 1988;Gärtner, 2001aGärtner, , 2001bEndriss and Gärtner, 2005;Ebert et al, 2006for German, Zwart, 2005.…”

“…We refer to Zwart (2005) for extensive discussion for Dutch. For additional specific discussion of pragmatic properties of V2R and in particular for the impossibility of modal subordination we refer to Ebert et al (2006). Gärtner (2001aGärtner ( , 2001b and Zwart (2005), represent the Germanic V2R patterns as a paratactic configuration, in which S1, the clause which introduces the discourse referent een jongen 'a boy', is the specifier of pP (with 'p' standing for 'paratactic'), and S2, the V2R, is the complement of the null head p. (24) is their representation:…”

Discourse Conditions on Relative Clauses: A Crosslinguistic and Diachronic Study on the Interaction between Mood, Verb Position and Information Structure

“…(2) [ Topic Das Blatt hat eine Seite,] [ Comment die ist wohl ganz schwarz] (cf. Ebert, Endriss & Gärtner, 2007) In this paper, we discuss the properties of verb placement in Modern German relative clauses and link it synchronically to mood alternations as can be observed in the Romance languages, in particular to Italian. Then, starting from the observation that Old High German (ohg) also exhibits mood alternations-like Italian-and alternations in verb placement-like Modern…”