V-to-I and V2 in subordinate clauses: an investigation of Faroese in relation to Icelandic and Danish

Abstract

In this article we investigate the status of two different types of movement in subordinate clauses in Faroese: the movement of the finite verb to a position below the subject but above negation and medial adverbs (V-to-I), and the movement of some XP and the finite verb to positions above the subject (V2). The exact status of these phenomena in contemporary Faroese, a language that has been argued to be undergoing syntactic change, is a matter of dispute; we attempt to clarify this using the methodology of Magnitude Estimation (ME). We extend what is known by presenting the results of a systematic comparison of judgment data from Icelandic (where the finite verb obligatorily moves to a high position within the clause, and embedded V2 has been claimed to be possible quite generally), Danish (where the finite verb obligatorily remains in a low position, and embedded V2 has been claimed to Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

The Rich Agreement Hypothesis Rehabilitated

“…Heycock, Sorace, and Hansen (2010), however, show that Faroese lacks V-to-I movement in all of its varieties. In short, they demonstrate that, to the extent that Faroese speakers allow V-negation orders, these are indicative of V-to-C movement rather than V-to-I movement.…”

Verb placement in clauses with initial adverbial maybe

“…According to Heycock et al (2010Heycock et al ( , 2011, the word order pattern is more or less lost today.…”

Føroyskur málføramunur sambært Schrøter og Sørensen / Faroese dialect differences as seen by Schrøter and Sørensen

“…Ta fyrru raðfylgjuna hava vit í norrønum og íslendskum, tann seinra er í dag tann vanliga í skandinaviskum málum. Granskararnir eru forvitnir eftir at vita hvar føroyskt stendur í mun til hini mál ini, og eitt nú um til ber at staðfesta bygda málsmun (sí eitt nú Heycock, 2010). Her skulu vit bara vísa á eitt dømi í tekstinum har sum munur er á raðfylgjuni hjá Schrøter og Sørensen av finittum sagn orði og setningshjáliði í eykasetningi: Taka vit samanum, síggja vit at Sørensen so at siga uttan undantak broytir orðaraðið so tað er í betri samsvari við tann danska tekstin.…”