Chapter 3 Towards a Criterial V2: an ideal mechanism
3.5. Conclusions
In this chapter, I proposed a criterial V2. Such a strong hypothesis may be able to explain cases of residual V2 and solve those theory-internal problems triggered by a typology ForceV2 and FinV2.
The proposal is in line with the guidelines of Cartography: one feature, one head and the transparency at the interfaces with the systems of sound and meaning. Therefore I adopted a VITP analysis in which “canonical” subjects remain in the IP, bringing evidence from Icelandic and Swiss Romansh varieties.
Finally, such a hypothesis depicts scrambling as movement to the LP of the clause, thus, criterial movements.
Chapter 4 will be dedicated to embedded contexts and the lack of V2 in certain languages such as Standard German or Standard Dutch.
Chapter 4
Criterial V2 and embedded contexts
4.0. V2 languages and embedded contexts: an overview
The typology in Wolfe (2016) is in line with proposals by Haegeman (1996), Poletto (2002) and the intuition of Den Besten (1983) that the verb and the complementizer compete for the same position. This section investigates embedded contexts, adopting the ideal mechanism developed in chapter 3.
In SR varieties (Anderson 2005, 2016; Fuß 2005), V2 is compulsory in both subject- (1a) and in non-subject initial embedded clauses as in (1b, c).
(1) Surselvan
a. El a detg che Renzo lavura a Cuira he has said that Renzo works in Chur
(Renzo Caduff, p.c.) Surmiran
b. Ia pains tgi dultschems vegia Corinna gugent I think that sweets have.SBJT.3s Corinna gladly
‘I think Corinna likes sweets’
c. Cartez tg’igl settember turnan=s ainten chel hotel Believe that the September return.SBJT.1P in this hotel
‘Do you think in September we’ll come back to this hotel?’
(Anderson 2005: 212; 7.56, 7.57a, b)
Other V2 languages show the same pattern of root clauses in embedded contexts, such as Yiddish (3), Kashmiri62 (4) and Dinka (5):
62 In Kashmiri, there is no embedded V2 in relative clauses and adverbial clauses (Holmberg 2015).
(2) Yiddish
Avrom gloybt az Max shikt avek dos bukh.
Avrom believes that Max sends away the book
(Diesing 1990)
(3) Kashmiri
me buuz ki raath vuch rameshan shiila
I heard that yesterday saw Ramesh.ERG Sheila
‘I heard that Ramesh saw Sheila yesterday.’
(Bhatt 1999: 98; 25a) (4) Dinka
À-yùukù luêeel è cuîin à-cíi Áyèn câam nè păal 3s-HAB.1pl say COMP food.3sPRF.OV Ayen.GEN eat.NF PREP knife
‘We say that, food, Ayen has eaten with a knife’
(Van Urk 2015: 129, 130; 2)
In Icelandic subject-initial embedded clauses the verb may undergo movement to a T position higher than alltaf ‘always’ (Wiklund et al 2007: 210; in line with section 3.3.3.3.). Non-subject-initial embedded clauses show the V2 pattern, as in (5a, b).
(5) Icelandic
a. Jón efast um að á morgun fari María snemma á fætur John doubts that tomorrow gets Mary early up
‘Jon doubts that Mary gets up early tomorrow’
b. Jón harmar að þessa bók skuli ég hafa lesið John regrets that this book shall I have read.
‘John regrests that I shall have read this book’
(Hrafnbjargarson & Wiklund 2009: 21; 1)
Standard German generally does not allow V2 in embedded contexts63. The inflected verb is at the “right” of the sentence64.
(6) Standard German Maria sagt dass Jan immer Bücher liest Mary says that John always books reads
(7) Standard German syntactic structure
If the complementizer is absent, certain bridge verbs (cf. Poletto 2014: 6) of the type of glauben ‘to think’ allow embedded V2 clauses as shown in (8c) and (8d).
63 The only structures which show a complementizer co-occurring with verb movement are those introduced by denn ‘because/for’ (for a comparative analysis with the French puisque, see Jivanyan & Samo, 2017) and es sei denn ‘unless’, in (i).
(i) a. Denn
Beile dich, denn ich habe keine Zeit Move you, because I have no time b. Es sei denn
Wir gehen heute Abend aus, es sei denn es gießt in Strömen We go today night out, unless EXPL pours in storms
‘Tonight we go out, unless it flows’
64 The hypothesis here involves a right-branching hypothesis à-la Haider (2010). Such a hypothesis is however compatible with Kayne (1994, 2018)’s anti-symmetry theory, adopting some specific movements.
For reason of space, I will not discuss the implementation here.
(8) Standard German
a. Giotto malte dieses Fresko Giotto painted this fresco
b. Der Stadtführer sagt dass Giotto dieses Fresko malte The tourist-guide says that Giotto this Fresco painted c. Der Stadtführer glaubt - Giotto malte dieses Fresko
the tourist-guide thinks Giotto painted this Fresco d. Der Stadtführer glaubt - DIESES FRESKO malte Giotto
the tourist-guide thinks THIS FRESCO painted Giotto
The lack of co-occurrence of V2 and the complementizer in embedded contexts provided the basis for Den Besten’s (1983) intuition, which claim that the verb moves to a C°
position. In the next subsections, I will investigate the nature of the complementizers among V2 languages and present a proposal in order to explain the differences between embedded V2 languages (SR varieties, Yiddish, etc.) and non-embedded V2 languages (Standard German, Standard Dutch).
4.1. The nature of complementizers
4.1.1. Leu’s (2015, 2017) proposal for ‘dass’ from Fin° to Force°
Let us start with West Germanic, namely the set of languages which do not allow V2 in embedded contexts. Following Den Besten’s (1983) intuition, the presence of the complementizer blocks the movement of the inflected verb to the Left Periphery. Since C° is overt, the inflected verb cannot move there. I will also adopt the assumption that complementizers may be merged in a lower position (see also why, Shlonsky & Soare 2011) and then they have to move higher65.
As for the nature of dass, Leu (2015) proposes that Standard German complementizer dass is made of two separate C positions, d- and –ass. In other words,
65 This proposal may be in line with the phenomenon of syncretic heads (a first proposal in Rizzi 1997, but see also Shlonsky 2006: 86, cf. Berthelot 2017) without postulating them, since syncretic heads challenge the idea of “one feature, one head”. On the other side, an idea of movement does co-exist with the guidelines of Cartography.
the complementizer dass in German is first merged in lower C position Cv (d-) and moved to a higher C position C2 (-ass), as proposed in (9):
(9) Leu (2015)
In recent works, Leu (2017) translated the label in (9) as Fin° (d-) and Force° (-ass), as in (10):
(10) Leu (2017)
The proposal in Leu (2015) is based on the fact that languages lacking a d- element in the complementizer allows V2 in embedded contexts, as in (11). In other words, the element in Fin° blocks the movement of the verb to the CP.
(11) Embedded V2 and complementizer shape across Germanic Language Embedded V2 Complementizer
Afrikaans no d-at
Dutch no d-at
Frisian no d-at
German no d-ass
Yiddish yes -az
Danish yes -at
Faroese yes -at
Icelandic yes -að
Norwegian yes -at
Swedish yes -att
(adapted from Leu 2015: 11; Table 1)
Data from Dutch varieties seems to challenge such a conclusion, since the Dutch equivalent of dass (dat in 12a) could be preceded by an extracted wh- element which target the Spec of the activated criterial position (SpecFoc) and a Q marker optionally realizing the attracting head Foc°, as given in (12b).
(12) Dutch varieties
a. Ik weet niet wie of dat Jan gezien heeft.
I know what who Q that Jan seen has (Haegeman 1996) b. [Ik weet niet [CP [SpecFoc wie [Foc° of [Fin° dat [IP Jan gezien heeft.]
Dat seems to occur in a lower complementizer position, contrary to proposals by Leu (2015, 2017). The nature of such a complementizer will be investigated in the next sub-section.
4.1.2. Do subordinators come from the IP?
Haegeman (2012) proposes that the English subordinator when is moved from an IP internal position. The subordinator, involving a null operator Op, interacts with topicalization, which also requires a null operator Op in English. As a matter of fact, topicalization is excluded in adverbial environments in terms of featural Relativized Minimality (henceforth fRM, Rizzi 1990, 2004; Starke 2001) contrary to Italian (Rizzi 2017), for example.
(13) a. English
*When Op the first exams Op you __ have passed __ you can register for the second
(Rizzi 2017: 322; 7) b. Italian
Quando gli esami di primo anno li hai superati __, ti puoi iscrivere al secondo anno.
‘When the first year exams you have them have passed, you can register for the second year’.
(Rizzi 2017: 322; 6)
The strongest hypothesis is that, in certain languages, every complementizer is internally merged from the IP, even the complementizers of the type of ‘that’.
The Bavarian equivalent of German dass shows agreement with the subject (as in 14, dasse). Even if there is broad debate on the status of subject clitics in complementizer agreement (see the recent state of the art in van Koppen 2017), one may tentatively hypothesize that they can be considered as IP internal heads.
(14) Bavarian
I haïd ned g’moant [dass-e an Fünfer kriag]
I had not thought that-SCL1S a five get
‘I didn’t think I would get (the rather bad) grade 5”
(Bayer 2006: 126; 15a)
Adopting the idea that the subject clitic has been merged together with dass, one should postulate that the locus of generation of d-and -ass should be lower than Fin° (according to data from Dutch varieties in 12a) and lower to the locus of generation of the subject clitic (in 13 use a general label FP).
I propose for German (following Leu 2017) that the complementizer dass is generated in the IP and undergo movement to Force° through Fin°. Given in (15) is the analysis of Bavarian complementizer.
(15) [Force° d-ass-e [… [Fin° <d-ass-e->… [FP1° <e> [FP2° <ass> [FP3° <d>…]]]]]]]]
The movement of the complementizer from Fin° to Force° might be not possible in the specific example from Dutch varieties in (10) because the Q marker of in Focus° plausibly block the movement of the complementizer to Force° in terms of fRM effects, as proposed in (16).
(16) Lack of movement to Force in Dutch varieties
[Force° [… [SpecFocus wie [Focus° of [Fin° dat [… [FP2° <at> [FP3° d>…]]]]]]]]]
Evidence suggests that the movement to Force° is compulsory since no topic can intervene between the matrix clause and the complementizer as observed in the example from Bavarian in (17).
(17) Bavarian
*I häid ned g’moant [an Fünfer dass-e kriag]
I had not thought a five that-SCL1S get.
(Bayer 2006: 126; 15b)
In the next subsection, I try to translate the general labels in (15) with those already proposed in Cartographic studies. I will explore the opportunity of replacing the general labels with those of the cartography of subjects proposed by Cardinaletti (2004).
4.1.3. The complementizer dass and Cardinaletti (2004)’s cartography of subjects
4.1.3.1 ‘-e’ in ‘dasse’: Subj°
In this sub-section I will translate the general labels FP in (15) into functional projections which have been already proposed in Cartographic Studies.
(15) [Force° d-ass-e […[Fin° <d-ass-e->… [FP1° <e> [FP2° <ass> [FP3° <d>…]]]]]]]]
The clitic –e may represent the Germanic counterpart of subject clitics (Poletto 2000) hosted in Subj°, as given in (18).
(18) Milanese
El fio el mangia l pom
‘The boy SCL eats the apple’
(Poletto 2000; Manzini & Savoia 2005 from Rizzi 2015: 26; 27)
I propose that the agreement of the complementizer with the subject is merged in the highest functional projection dedicated to the subject in Cardinaletti (2004)’s system.
(19) Cartography of subject positions [SpecSubjP [SpecEppP [specAgrSP ]]]
(Cardinaletti 2004: 154; 156)
Therefore, (15) can be translated into (15’).
(15’) [Force° d-ass-e … [Fin° <d-ass-e-> [Subj° <e> [FP2° <ass> [FP3° [<d>…]]]]]]
The position of –e in dasse should be kept different from the one of Tense/I°, as suggested by evidence from Lower Bavarian. In Lower Bavarian, subject clitic –ma can only occur when it agrees with the complementizer as in (20a) and in a V2 context as in (20b).
Therefore, I propose that –n is a Tense°/I° functional projection66.
(20) Lower Bavarian:
a. [. . .] das-ma mir noch Minga fahr-n/*-ma.
that-AGRC we to Munich go-1.P/- AGRC
b. Mir fahr-ma/*-n noch Minga.
We go- AGRC/-1P to Munich
(Leu 2015: 276; 5)
Following (20), I propose that I° is lower than the functional projection where d and -ass are generated, as given in (21).
(21) Subject clitic ≠ Inflection
[Force° d-as-ma [Fin° <d-ass-ma>… [Subj° ma [FP2 as [FP3° d [… [I° n …]]]]]]
Between these two positions, slightly lower than Subj°, I propose a further position for the object clitic (example 42 chapter 3 of this work) discussed in Van Cranenbroeck &
Haegeman (2007), here repeated.
(42, ch.3) Wambeeck dialect of Flemish a. dan-t Marie al wetj.
that-it Marie already knows .... that Marie already knows it.'
b. Nou wenj-t Marie al.
now knows-it Marie already 'Now, Marie already knows it.'
(Van Craenenbroeck & Haegeman 2007: 169; 5)
66 Further research is required in T°: e.g. person, gender, number, following Shlonsky (2013).
I propose that object clitics undergo movement together with the verb or the complementizer in embedded clauses, like subject clitics, as given in (21’).
(21’) Subject clitic ≠ Object Clitic ≠ Inflection
[Force° d-ant [Fin° <d-an-t>…[Subj° Maria [Obj° –t [FP2 a [FP3° d [… [I° n …]]]]]]
I will leave aside the discussion on object clitics in the current study. Let us return to Bavarian and locate –ass of ‘dasse’ in the structure.
4.1.3.2 ‘-ass’ in ‘dasse’: EPP°
Let us turn now to -ass. First of all, it is possible to observe crosslinguistically morphological similarities between argument expletives and complementizers, as briefly sketched in (22) adopted from Vikner (1995: ch.7). I assume that expletives are IP internal (Belletti 1988 contraCardinaletti 1990, Vikner 1995, Tomaselli 1990; Sigurðsson 1989).
(22) Complementizer and (argument) expletives in Germanic67 Complementizer Expletive
German dass es
Dutch dat het
Swedish att det
Norwegian at det
Icelandic að það
Yiddish az es
Furthemore, German impersonal passive es is obligatory if no other element has been fronted to the LP (23a), but its presence makes the sentence agrammatical both (i) when another element is fronted to the left of the finite verb (23b) and (ii) in embedded clauses (23c).
67 Interestingly, Leu (2015) proposes that those languages a d- element in the complementizer allow V2 in embedded clauses (Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Yiddish in 18). There is a complementary distribution between d- in the complementizer and in the expletive.
(23) Standard German
a. *(Es) wurde getanzt
EXPL was danced
“There was dancing”/ “People were dancing”
(Mohr 2002: 1; 1a) b. Gestern wurde (*es) getanzt
Yesterday was EXPL danced
“Yesterday, there was dancing” / “Yesterday, people were dancing”
(Mohr 2002: 1; 1c) c. …daß (*es) getanzt wurde.
… that EXPL danced was
“… that there was dancing” / “…that people were dancing”.
(Mohr 2002: 1; 1b)
In cases of the movement of the verb to the CP, the verb undergoes movement to the expletive position. In embedded contexts, the complementizer fills the same position,
Further research is however required, in order to provide a finer analysis.
Adopting the cartography of subjects in Cardinaletti (2004), I locate -ass in the EPP°
position she assigned to expletives.
Therefore, (15’) can be translated into (15’’):
(15’) [Force° d-ass-e … [Fin° <d-ass-e-> [Subj° <e> [FP2° <ass> [FP3° [<d>…]]]]]]
(15’’) [Force° d-ass-e … [Fin° <d-ass-e-> [Subj° <e> [EppP° <ass> [FP3° [<d>…]]]]]]
4.1.3.3‘-d’ in ‘dasse’: AgrS°
As for d-, I tentatively compare such an element with the expletive da ‘there’. Contrary to contemporary German (24a), where it has a clear event (‘now’ and ‘then’) interpretation (Mohr 2002; see also Richards & Biberauer 2005), in Early New High German, da is considered as a semantically underspecified adverbial (24b), filling a SpecTP position (Light 2005).
(24) a. Contemporary German (‘now and then’) daß (da) gestern ein Schiff versunken ist that (da) yesterday a ship sunk is
‘. . . that a ship sunk yesterday.’
(Richards & Biberauer 2005) b. Early New High German
Selig sind, die da geystlich arm sind Blessed are who da spiritual poor are
‘Blessed are those who are spiritually poor.’
(Septembertestament, Matthew 5:3 from Light 2015: 10; 23)
The lack of a clear event interpretation could represent a further clue in order to consider -d as merged in the lowest functional projection dedicated to subjects proposed by Cardinaletti (2004), namely AgrS°, as in (21).
(15’’) [Force° d-ass-e … [Fin° <d-ass-e-> [Subj° <e> [EppP° <ass> [FP3° [<d>…]]]]]]
(15’’) [Force° d-ass-e … [Fin° <d-ass-e-> [Subj° <e> [EppP° <ass> [AgrS° [<d>…]]]]]
4.1.3.4. Summing up: subordinators come from the IP
Inspired by Leu (2015)’s proposal, I postulate that the subordinator dass is generated IP internally and then moved to Force° through Fin°. In its movement to Force°, I also postulate that it undergoes movement through all the activated criterial positions, in order to keep a symmetry with root contexts.
Further evidence for such a proposal comes from that fact "that complementizer agreement does not occur in embedded verb second constructions" as stated by Zwart (1997: 243).
The movement of the Bavarian complementizer dasse in (12, here repeated) from the IP to Force° is shown in (25).
(12) Bavarian
I haïd ned g’moant [dass-e an Fünfer kriag]
‘I had not thought that.SCL1s a five get
‘I didn’t think I would get (the rather bad) grade 5’
(Bayer 2006: 126; 15a)
(25) From the IP to Force° (inspired by Leu 2017).
4.1.3.5. Intermediate stages
From (25) one may expect also some intermediate stage, in which the complementizer stops in a lower functional head in its way to Force°. Such an evidence could be represented by so-called Bavarian “Emphatic” Topicalization (Lutz 2014), in (26).
(26) Bavarian68
Am Fünfa dass-e griag, hed-e ned gmoand.
A five that.SCL1S get had. SCL1S not thought
‘I wouldn’t have thought that I would get a 5 for the grade’
(Lutz 2014: 121, 17c)
Not only dass, but also other subordinators can co-occur with “emphatic topicalization”.
As depicted by Lutz (2014), a topicalized element which is not a Hanging Topic69 precedes the complementizer wane ‘if + 1ps’, since it is not resumed by any resumptive pronouns or epithets of the IP of the embedded clause.
(27) Bavarian
Deesi wann-e wissert, wos ti gnau is, daad-e ti aa bstoiln.
That if.SCL1S knew, what exactly is do SBJT.SCL1S also order
‘If I knew what exactly that is I would order it too.’
(Lutz 2014: 113; 1c)
Another interesting pattern in Bavarian emphatic topicalization is related to Y/N questions.
In (28), a Y/N question is syntactically realized with the embedded complementizer ob ‘if’. Der Peter, bearing nominative case, is not a Hanging Topic since there is no resumptive pronoun within the IP.
(28) Bavarian
68 The derivation would be the following, with a topicalized embedded clause. The verb is in a Top° position of the embedded clause creating a Spec-Head configuration with the topicalized elements.
(i) [CP1 [SpecTopP Am Fünfa dass-e griag [Top° hed-e [IP ned gmodand
<[CP2 [Force° [SpecTop Am funf [Top° dass-e [Fin°<dass-e> [IP griag am Funfa]]]]]>]]]]
69 Moreover, Hanging Topic seems to be specifically a root phenomenon. See chapter 5 for a finer analysis of Hanging Topics and V2 languages.
One may propose that the Spec-head configuration is created with a complementizer rather than the verb.
In this section, I proposed that the complementizer dass in German is generated in a very high position of the IP and then moved to Force° through Fin° and all the activated criterial positions.
The ungrammaticality of (17, here repeated) might be due to selection problems / labelling problems.
(17) Bavarian
*I häid ned g’moant [an Fünfer dass-e kriag]
I had not thought a five that.SCL1S get.
(Bayer 2006: 126; 15b)
In section 4.2., I will propose a cross-linguistic analysis and intra-linguistic analysis for the lack or the presence of the verb and a V2 structures in embedded contexts.
4.2 On the lack of V2 in embedded clauses and criterial V2
4.2.1. Crosslinguistc variation: German vs. SR varieties
Adopting the Criterial V2 view, it should be expected that multiple elements may target the Left Periphery in embedded contexts. If the complementizer is in Force°, “intervening material”, like focalized objects, can occur between the complementizer and the
“canonical” subject in SpecIP, as given in (29).
(29) Standard German
Er hat erzahlt, daß DEN NEUEN LEHRER einige der Schüler angerufen haben.
He has said that the new teacher some the pupils phoned have
"He said that some of the pupils phoned the new teacher. "
(adapted from Bader & Meng 1999: 129; 106)
Why is there no Spec-head configuration in the LP? The lack of a Spec-Head configuration in a TopP position may be due to the fact that the copy of the element in AgrS°, EPP° or Subj° is able to block the movement of the verb to the head of the activated criterial position in terms of fRM, as in (30). Therefore, there is no V2 in subject or expletive subject initial clauses.
(30) No Embedded V2 in standard German
In embedded V2 languages, there is no violation in terms of locality. As for SR varieties, the complementizer of the che/tgi type may work exactly like the one in Romance languages (and therefore Italian che, cf. Rizzi 1997). I propose that tgi/che is directly base-generated in Force°. This property may be due either to (i) syntactic transfer from Italian or (ii) because in Rhaeto-Romance varieties, the complementizer has undergone the same evolution as Romance counterparts from Latin.
(1c) Surmiran
Ia pains tgi dultschems vegia Corinna gugent I think that sweets have.SBJT.3s Corinna gladly ‘I think Corinna likes sweets’
(Anderson 2005: 212; 7.57a, b)
Therefore, there is no violation of fRM and the V2 pattern is allowed, as in (31):
(31) No RM violations
In the next sub-section I shall investigate the same asymmetry intra-linguistically.
4.2.2. Ke type and az type (Grewendorf & Poletto 2012)
The previous sub-sections proposed a typology of embedded V2 languages. On the one hand, languages excluding V2 in embedded clauses and on the other, languages allowing Spec-head configurations with the verb in embedded clauses.
However, according to the locus of the generation of the complementizer, one may predict the possibility that a V2 language may have both type of embedded V2s.
This is the case for Cimbrian, which has been described as having a double complementizer system in Grewendorf & Poletto (2011), Tomaselli et al. (2012) and Bidese et al. (2014).
Cimbrian displays two types of complementizers. One complementizer is ke which allows embedded V2 structures as observed in the examples in (32).
(32) Cimbrian
a. I boaz ke du geast nèt ka Tria I know that you go not to Trento
“I know you do not go to Trento”
b. * I boaz ke du nèt geast ka Tria I know that you not go to Trento
(Bidese, Padovan et al. 2014: ex. 2a, b)
Different behaviour can be observed with those clauses introduced by the complementizers of the az type, since they do not allow V2 in embedded clauses (contra Leu 2015 and the presence of d in the complementizer).
(33) Cimbrian
a. I bill az-to nèt geast ka Tria I want that-you.cl not go to Trento
“I do not want you to go to Trento”
b. *I bill az-.to geast nèt ka Tria I want that-you.cl not go to Trento
(Bidese, Padovan et al. 2014: ex. 4a, b)
In sum,
(34) Embedded Clauses and complementizers in Cimbrian
a. The embedded clauses introduced by ke-type complementizers allow V2 structures;
b. The embedded clauses introduced by az-type complementizers do not
b. The embedded clauses introduced by az-type complementizers do not