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The sigmatic future has a remarkable pattern of distribution. In main clauses only the fossilized faxō occurs, while in subordinate clauses we find forms belonging to different verbs and persons. In main clauses the meaning is that of a simple future (‘I shall do’), whereas in subordinate clauses the forms could be replaced by future perfects (‘I shall have done’). The perfective, but non-anterior meaning in main clauses is original. The anterior meaning in subordinate clauses is the result of reanalysis.

This chapter shows that what are usually labeled adverbial clauses differ in terms of their internal syntax: while main clause phenomena (MCP) are banned from some adverbial clauses, they are not excluded from all adverbial clauses. Argument fronting is used as the prototypical MCP for English. It shows that the difference between the two types of adverbial clauses is reflected in their external syntax. In particular, adverbial clauses compatible with argument fronting have properties of main clauses and are less integrated with the clause that they modify. The chapter distinguishes “central” adverbial clauses from “peripheral” adverbial clauses; the labeling is intended to reflect the different degree of integration of the clause with respect to the clause they modify.

This chapter represents an attempt to put the methodology for syntactic reconstruction outlined in the previous chapter into practice. The focus throughout is on the position of the finite verb in declarative main clauses. Section 3.2 focuses particularly on the V2/V3 alternation that has often been observed, arguing that it is information-structurally conditioned and can be reconstructed for Proto-Northwest Germanic. In section 3.3 it considers V1 main clauses. section 3.4 it discusses ‘verb-late’ main clauses, which have so far resisted insightful analysis. After demonstrating the presence of such clauses in all the early West Germanic languages, it proposes an account based on the discourse status of these clauses. Section 3.5 is an attempt to integrate Gothic into the picture.

This chapter deals with the frequency development of the subjunctive and its competitors as well as with their distribution across text categories in main clauses in the periods Old English (OE), Middle English (ME), and Early Modern English (EModE). The results of the analysis of these parameters are interpreted as a change from a preferred weak type of root modality in OE to a strong type in ME, which is reversed in EModE. A more or less continuous frequency decrease of subjunctives from OE until late ME contrasts with a frequency rise of modal contructions and imperatives. Yet the frequency rise of imperatives is reversed in ME. The subjunctive is the preferred realisation of the verbal syntagms in text category STA (legislative texts) in all periods. The other text categories with big shares of relevant verbal syntagms have changing preferences of their realisations.

Pursuing the analysis developed in the preceding chapters, this chapter opens questions for future research. It is a survey of finite that clauses which resist main clause phenomena. It shows that such clauses too are characterized by double asymmetry, suggesting ceteris paribus that a movement account can also be invoked for their derivation. The account finds its ancestors in the secondary literature and in particular in proposals according to which the clause types in question are derived as (free) relatives. Based on the literature, comparative data from a number of languages (e.g., Gungbe, Bulgarian, Dutch, Icelandic) are discussed and elaborated and support the analyses proposed.

This chapter discusses the occurrence of null arguments in early Germanic. In 5.2 it presents data on the occurrence of null arguments from five key early Germanic languages, including new quantitative studies of Gothic, Old Norse, Old English, and Old Saxon. Section 5.3 analyses these data within a generative framework, assessing the applicability of different theories. It argues that the theory of identification of null subjects by rich verbal agreement is not sufficient to explain the range of null arguments attested in early Germanic; a topic-drop analysis is also ruled out. It is argued the early Northwest Germanic languages were ‘partial’ null argument languages. In 5.4 these languages are looked at from a diachronic perspective, and it is argued that the restriction to main clauses found in Northwest Germanic is an innovation, and that we can tentatively reconstruct Proto-Germanic (like Gothic) as a canonical null subject language.

The clause is the basic unit which describes an activity, a property, a state, or a relationship. Clauses can be classified according to their internal structure, including number and roles of participants and type of predicate. In terms of their internal structure, clauses can be transitive, ditransitive, intransitive, or extended intransitive. Further types are copula clauses and verbless clauses. Clauses vary in their syntactic function. A clause which forms a sentence on its own, that is, can be used as a complete utterance is a 'main clause'. Dependent clauses (including complement clauses, relative clauses, and subordinate clauses) cannot form sentences on their own. They have a function with respect to the main clause within a sentence. Finally, clauses may have different pragmatic functions. A main clause—a sentence in itself—reflects a speech act: a statement, a command, or a question. This chapter also includes negation as a clausal category.

Visser’s Generalization (VG) expresses a relation between control by an implicit subject and passivization in a main clause and argues that these two phenomena are incompatible. Standard illustrations of VG involve main clauses based on the verb promise, such as “Mike promised Sylvia to call Rachel.” VG-like patterns are found with constructions that are not passives and do not contain any by phrases. Hence, the “no by phrase complement controllers” principle is not only lethally too strong but also too weak to determine those aspects of English syntax linked to VG. This chapter examines the assumptions of VG, focusing on one aspect of VG that has nothing to do with control. It also discusses VG in relation to constraints on 3 object passivization, Perlmutter’s Generalization, quace-based constraints on pseudopassivization and Q constructions, and the absence of VG restrictions in promise nominalizations.

In this work the complex distribution of null subjects in Old Florentine of the thirteenth century is analysed. The main theoretical question answered is the following: what are the factors that rule the distribution of null and lexical pronominal subjects in Old Italian? It is well known that there are differences between Modern and Old Italian which show that it is not possible to apply the standard view on pro drop to Old Italian. The data cannot be explained by the traditional proposal that the inflected verb licenses pro drop when it is in C°, since pro drop can also occur in non-V2 contexts. It is argued that the complex distribution of Old Italian null subjects can only be made sense of if the null subject depends on different types of null topics which have different licensing conditions in main clauses and embedded clauses.

This chapter returns to argument fronting in English, and examines its properties from a comparative perspective. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 2.2 compares English argument fronting, and specifically topicalization, with Romance clitic left dislocation (CLLD). Section 2.3 compares English argument fronting with English left-peripheral adjuncts. Section 2.4 provides an overview of the three patterns, concluding that English left-peripheral adjuncts pattern more with Romance CLLD than with fronted arguments in English. Section 2.5 widens the discussion and shows that additional so-called main clause phenomena or root transformations have the distribution of fronted arguments. Section 2.6 briefly discusses the specific properties of long-moved adjuncts, and Section 2.7 provides a summary of the chapter.

This chapter focuses on the assumption that the negative polarity item (NPI) phrase occupies a scope position as well as the object position, suggesting that NEG raising takes place only from the scope position. It also claims that [[NEG SOME] thing] must occupy a scope position, a common assumption in the syntax and semantics literature; that for a determiner phrase (DP) with a scope occurrence, the scope occurrence is the unique available launching point for NEG raising; and that if the NEGs of quantifier DPs raise out of nonscope positions, “overgeneration” will result in certain clear cases, whereas if such raising can only launch from scope positions, the overgeneration is avoided. In the sentence Rodney claimed that Evelyn did not own any cheetah, the scope of the quantifier DP is internal to the complement clause. The chapter also considers a structure with negation in the main clause in the sentence Rodney did not claim that Evelyn owned any cheetah.

This chapter engages with recent criticism of Spanish’s status as a V2 language, suggesting that the criticism is ill-founded and arguing that it was a relatively strict V2 language, showing a prefield comparable to other V2 systems, Germanic-inversion, and direct object fronting without clitic resumption. Both verb-initial and verb-third orders are also shown to be heavily restricted in certain later Old Spanish texts when compared to other Medieval Romance V2 varieties. The chapter challenges the notion that Old Spanish was a symmetrical V2 language, presenting quantitative data that it showed word order asymmetries between matrix and embedded clauses, which are typical of asymmetric V2 systems such as Modern German and Dutch.

This chapter investigates the interpretation of tense in Japanese mirative sentences using nante/towa and considers cross-linguistic variations of mirativity in terms of tense. In Japanese, when nante or towa is combined with a proposition that contains the so-called non-past form ru, the sentence becomes ambiguous as having both a non-past (future/present) reading and a past reading. Based on a theory by Sawada and Sawada (2019), we argue that this ambiguity of tense is due to the conventional implicature of nante/towa: nante/towa can take a ‘non-tensed’ proposition p and conventionally implies that (i) p is settled (i.e., p is/was true or predicted to be true) and (ii) the speaker did not expect such p. It will be shown that a basic analysis of nante/towa can apply to the English exclamatory that-clause, which also presents an ambiguity of tense, and at least partially to the Korean mirative tani sentence in which a past-oriented meaning can be represented based on the stem form of a verb.

The chapter begins with a brief background section introducing what is meant by grammatical tone patterns in Bantu languages. Eight different grammatical tone patterns can be identified for affirmative main clause verbs, representing eighteen inflections. The tone patterns for all eighteen inflections are illustrated and discussed in detail in the core eight sections of the chapter. The tone patterns of high-toned extensions and Object Markers are also illustrated and analyzed. The concluding section takes up some analytical issues raised by grammatical tone, including the accentual properties of the tone patterns, the abstract relationship between the source of the high tone patterns and the target syllables for tone realization, and how the grammatical tone patterns of Chichewa could have led to the skewing, in the synchronic verb system, toward toneless stems.

Roughly speaking, only four syntactic roles can be distinguished for a noun phrase: subject, object, adverbial phrase, and predicate in a verbal sentence the predicate is a verb, in a nominal sentence it is a noun phrase, and in an existential sentence it is either var or yok. In a verbal sentence one or more objects may occur, depending on the type of verb, transitive or intransitive. Other sentence types do not allow for objects, but all types must have a subject, while one or more adverbial phrases are optional. All this forms the main topic of this top of that, it is explained how noun phrases are applied in genitive-possessive constructions.