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The chapter begins with a very brief excursus into Davidsonian event semantics, explaining the basic motivation for positing event variables, as well as ‘separation’ of θ‎-roles from predicates. It then develops the TP-Denotation Hypothesis, i.e. the idea that events are denoted through the Tense feature. This naturally leads to a tripartite typology of Tense vs No-Tense languages, and Weak-Tense vs Strong-Tense languages. Strong-Tense (Romance), Weak-Tense (mainly English), and No-Tense (Chinese) languages are illustrated. The chapter then turns to other examples of cross-linguistic variation in verb-movement: V-initial languages and Germanic verb-second, where a novel labelling-based proposal for certain core properties is developed. The proposals regarding the changes affecting the ‘inversion’ system through the history of English made by Biberauer & Roberts are then summarized. The chapter concludes with a parameter hierarchy for Tense.

The Romance che‐type complementizer belongs to the same morpholexical series as wh‐phrases. This chapter proposes that both as a wh‐phrase and as a complementizer, che is nominal and argumental — therefore not a functional projection (C) of the sentence. This chapter argues that this proposal optimally accounts for fine variation across Romance.

This chapter examines whether head movement can be analyzed more generally as cliticization/incorporation. It shows that analysis of cliticization as incorporation extends to the core cases of head movement with LF-effects: Auxiliary movement and verb movement. The chapter also provides evidence that the A-over-A Condition does not always rule out head movement. These cases also involve defective goals. In this context, the chapter contrasts V-movement to T with VP-movement to SpecTP of the kind observed in various verb-object-subject (VOS) and verb-subject-object (VSO) languages. VP-movement, but not defective goal, can satisfy the EPP in these languages. Finally, the chapter considers the morphological expression of tense distinctions in the VOS/VSO languages, as compared to that in many Romance and Germanic languages.

This chapter argues for a different analysis of the Middle Welsh facts and of V₂ in general. The analysis imposes strict constraints on the available VSO orders, and thus makes clear predictions on the circumstances under which a change from V₂ to VSO should be possible. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 12.2 introduces a theory of V₂, in which obligatory topicalization is the result of a type of verb movement, namely self-attachment. Section 12.3 shows how this theory can account for the existence of VSO languages. Section 12.4 applies their theory to Middle Welsh and investigates how it fares with regard to the developments in the history of Welsh. Section 12.5 concludes with a comparison of this analysis and the one proposed in Willis (1998).

Answers to yes–no questions are sentences even when they are just a question particle or just a verb. An answer can be a declarative sentence expressing one of the alternative propositions posed by the question, or it may be a focused polarity feature spelled out as a particle or supported by a moved verb or moved remnant PolP, assigning value to an unvalued polarity feature inherited from the question, with the IP (PolP) deleted. The identity condition on ellipsis in answers is discussed and the distribution of answer types among world languages. There are two types of verb-echo answers, one derived by pro-drop and VP-ellipsis, the other derived by verb movement or remnant PolP-movement. A distinguishing test is proposed. The verb-echo type derived by movement is characteristic of about 25% of the world’s languages. The derivation of yes–no answers in Welsh, Finnish, and Thai is discussed in some detail.

The literature on the locus of negation in syntactic structure focuses primarily on the position of negation relative to the spine of the clause, the Inflectional Phrase (IP/TP), and whether the negative phrase (NegP) follows or precedes TP. Of particular debate is whether or not the locus of NegP is a parametric choice whereby the Individual/Internal Language (I-Language) of the speaker has the locus of NegP set to one of the two options available in Universal Grammar (UG). The alternative view is that NegP can project below or above TP and can have multiple positions within the structure, each with different syntactic and semantic effects. This chapter discusses both views and proposes a multi-locus analysis for negation in Arabic. After a discussion of these two views, I discuss key issues in the syntax of subjects, verb movement, and tense and aspect in Arabic. These topics are intimately related to the syntax of negation and the analyses presented in this and the subsequent chapters of this monograph. I then present the multi-locus analysis advancing empirical and theoretical arguments from key word order generalizations involving adverbs, subjects, complementizers, and the verbal copula.

Chapter 4 provides an analysis of the patterns of default verb movement identified in Chapters 2 and 3. First, it shows that the attested macro-typologies are not accidental choices of the languages, but rather stem from a compensatory mechanism between syntax and morphology in licensing the Tense, Aspect, and Mood (TAM) interpretation of the verb, whereby verb movement only occurs in cases of poor paradigmatic instantiation of TAM, that is in cases when TAM chief values are not expressed by synthetic and non-syncretic paradigms. Second, a technical implementation of this proposal is offered which allows the modelling of this instance of variation into a parameter hierarchy, along the lines envisaged by the Rethinking Comparative Syntax research group. To conclude, the data from Brazilian Portuguese are assessed against the expectations of the proposed mechanism.

Chapter 5 investigates Spanish and Romanian marked orderings of verbs and adverbs, as well as the microvariation in verb placement emerging from the investigation of variously TAM-specified lexical vs functional and finite vs non-finite forms. First, the pragmatically marked orders of Romanian and Spanish present indicative verbs are considered. Second, the placements of the perfective auxiliary ‘have’ and of the active past participle are analysed and it is shown that the attested variation can be subsumed under the same licensing principle responsible for default movement. Subsequently, a unified analysis is provided to account for the high placement of infinitives and subjunctives. The chapter ends with the cases of Romanian and French, which seem to escape the proposed analyses, followed by a discussion about the role played by Tense and Aspect in verb movement and the residual patterns of microvariation exhibited by Brazilian Portuguese.

This chapter discusses data from the Bantu languages Shona and Kinyarwanda which provide evidence that head movement operations form part of narrow syntax. First, it is argued that a head movement analysis is better suited to explain the verb‐initial word order of Shona object relative clauses than an alternative based on remnant phrasal movement. Then it is shown that an analysis of object markers in Kinyarwanda locative constructions as syntactically incorporated pronominal heads is superior to theories that treat object markers as non‐incorporated phrases or agreement morphemes. Finally, on the basis of the arguments presented in the analysis, various general head movement ‘diagnostics’ are identified, i.e. criteria that can help determine whether or not a given word or affix order is derived by head movement.

This chapter, on the French repetitive particle re-, analyzes verb movement. The distribution of this lexical item provides important insights on the structure of the VP layer and on verb movement possibilities. It also shows that (some) apparently simple verbs must indeed be represented by several heads in the syntax, and that a syntactic decomposition provides grounds for explaining the relation between the interpretation of re- and its variable phonetic realization.

Triggered Inversion, the movement of the verb to second sentential position in Hebrew, has received two different analyses. According to one analysis, the verb moves to C; according to the other it moves to T. This chapter explores the pattern of production of structures that involve verb movement to the second position by Hebrew‐speaking individuals with agrammatic aphasia. Their production of such sentences can serve as a critical test between the two syntactic accounts. The results indicate that none of the agrammatic aphasics could produce sentences with verb movement to second position. Importantly, some of the patients had a deficit at T and above, whereas other patients had a deficit only in CP. Even the patients who could access TP but not CP could not produce these sentences. This pattern indicates that VS in Hebrew should be analysed as movement of the verb to C, with a trigger in spec‐CP.

This chapter analyses two distinct phenomena found in old and modern Romance varieties, namely ‘interpolation’ and ‘scrambling’, against the data of old Romanian. Unified by the non-adjacency between higher functional elements (clitics and auxiliary verbs) and the lexical verb, interpolation and scrambling are discussed under the blanket term ‘discontiguous linearizations in the sentential core’ and are shown to be derived in old Romanian through lower verb movement along the clausal spine. The existence of lower verb movement in old Romanian supports an important aspect of the diachrony of V-raising in Romanian and in the Romance languages: generalized V-to-I movement is not attained only through the reanalysis of a relaxed V2 grammar (specific to matrix clauses), but also through a gradual process of V-raising to the left along the clausal spine (characterizing embedded clauses). Discontiguous linearizations involving higher functional elements and modal complex predicates bring evidence for the analysis of interpolation and scrambling.

Mysteriously, Verb Second (V2) languages are known to exhibit auxiliary-stranding verb phrase ellipsis (VPE) but to lack verb-stranding VPE, even though the inflected verb must leave the VP (Mikkelsen 2006; LaCara 2014). Sailor (2018) claims that VPE bleeds V2; the feature that drives ellipsis (on T) is introduced derivationally prior to the feature driving V2 (on C). Only languages with verb movement triggered by T, as in Hebrew (Goldberg 2005), exhibit V-stranding VPE. This chapter offers evidence that Sailor’s approach is on the right track; the Indic language Kashmiri is a V2 language in which auxiliary-stranding and V-stranding VPE co-occur, because T is independently a trigger for V movement (Munshi and Bhatt 2009). The findings support a particular approach to the timing and interaction of the major operations in the grammar and suggest that any approach to V2 must account for the variation in the presentation of VPE in V2 languages.

Current understanding of syntactic variation and change relies on the notion of parameters of varying magnitude (micro- and macroparameters). This chapter focuses on the flipside of parameter change, namely the retention and survival of synthetic morphological structure in a context of widespread analyticization. The global effects of synthetic-to-analytic drift are examined in two diachronic scenarios: one in which the process has almost, though not entirely been completed (Coptic Egyptian), and another one in which the process is still under way (Brazilian Portuguese). Coptic has gone very far in abandoning its former synthetic features and thus exhibits a high degree of analyticity. In Brazilian Portuguese, the analyticization process is an advanced state, with synthetically inflected tenses exhibiting a decreasing productivity and gradually being replaced by the corresponding auxiliary verb constructions in the spoken language. The restriction on verb movement is a side effect of ongoing analyticization that affects language’s word order.

In this chapter, by focusing on two dimensions of cross‐linguistic variation, the hypothesis is discussed that parameters are limited to properties of the functional lexicon, which have an impact on the core computational operations. In one case, variation concerns the probe head and the operation Move: The [V] feature which drives verb movement can be bundled with the features of different functional heads in the clausal skeleton. This lexical difference has consequences in other aspects of syntax, namely, in the placement of subjects. In the other case, variation concerns Spell‐Out, i.e. the availability of lexical items which spell out syntactic features, an instance of variation which can concern both probes and goals (of the functional type such as pronouns). The data show that the interaction between pronounced/unpronounced verbal inflection and pronounced/unpronounced pronominal subjects is not entirely syntactic in nature, but raises questions related to sentence processing and efficiency of computation.

This chapter discusses diachronic implications of the idea that there is a correlation between rich verbal agreement marking and verb movement, known as the Rich Agreement Hypothesis (RAH). Focusing on Koeneman and Zeijlstra’s (2014) recent work that aims at reinstating the RAH in its strongest biconditional form, it presents a set of diachronic case studies that challenge the expectation, fuelled by the strong RAH, that morphological and syntactic change should always go hand in hand. First, it is argued that Koeneman and Zeijlstra’s attempt to accommodate problematic cases (e.g. loss of verbal agreement morphology with delayed loss of verb movement) in terms of syntactic reanalysis runs into difficulties. In addition, the chapter presents data from Lithuanian and Cimbrian, where a change from SOV to SVO resulted in word-order patterns that violate the RAH, an observation that challenges both strong and weak versions of the RAH.

This chapter provides a general analysis of the deletion process, with its application to Pseudogapping. It is shown how this deletion mechanism can be extended to other instances of Ellipsis. The main feature in the deletion process in Ellipsis structures is taken to be the E-feature, which is redefined such that it no longer requires featural movement. Returning to the question of verb movement in Ellipsis, it is argued that the E-feature renders verb movement obsolete, which establishes a straightforward connection between verb raising and verb deletion. Moreover, the E-feature is linked to the process of focus movement in that focus movement must apply to focused material inside a domain that is specified for deletion by means of the E-feature.