Verb Clusters, Verb Raising, and Restructuring
Susi Wurmbrand · The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax, Second Edition · 2017
Abstract This overview chapter reviews the major generalizations, trends, and theoretical findings of the research on verb clusters. The first part of the overview provides a summary of the diverse empirical distribution of verb clusters across West Germanic, including the results of several recent extensive dialectal studies. The variation within certain dialect groups is hypothesized to be the result of extensive dialectal bilingualism, and a descriptive rule system is given that reflects certain dialectal subset relations. The second part of the overview surveys the merits and limits of a range of syntactic approaches to the verb cluster phenomenon and concludes with some speculations about one of the core open issues – the question of why verbs cluster and what the deep motivation for the verb‐clustering phenomenon is. Among others, the following empirical issues and theoretical questions are discussed in this overview: (i) whether there is a direct or indirect causal relation between word order and morphology (in particular, theInfinitivus Pro Participio‘infinitive for participle’ andParticipium Pro Infinitivo‘participle for infinitive’ effects); (ii) whether in verb clusters with three verbal elements, the 2‐1‐3 order exists as a genuine verb cluster order; (iii) whether verb cluster orders are derived by syntactic movement or other linearization mechanisms; (iv) whether and how verb clusters contribute to debates about the existence of directionality in syntax, the nature and motivation of movement, or the featural make‐up of the verbal domain; and (v) whether syntax can involve optionality.