Abstract
Although sentence final verbal clusters in dialects of Dutch demonstrate a large amount of variation in the order of verbs, we argue that this is only apparently so. We take each dialect to allow just one order of verbs in three-verb clusters with a past participle. In the north of the Dutch language area, the order is descending (V3-V2-V1) and the rest of the dialects show an ascending order (V1-V2-V3). The large amount of apparent counterexamples will be explained by independently motivated, interfering properties. First, participles might be V-type or A-type. Only V-type participles occur in V-positions in the verbal cluster. Secondly, non-verbal elements (such as A-type participles) may interrupt a verbal cluster. We will show that the distribution of the different orders in dialects of Dutch strongly supports such a restrictive approach. We thus take this to be an argument that a structural approach to dialectology is required to gain insight in the properties of the formation of verbal clusters in Dutch.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | From semantics to dialectometry |
| Subtitle of host publication | Festschrift in honor of John Nerbonne |
| Editors | Martijn Weiling, Martin Kroon , Gertjan van Noord , Gosse Bouma |
| Publisher | College Publications |
| Pages | 23-31 |
| Publication status | Published - 2017 |