VERB MOVEMENT AND COMPLEMENTIZER AGREEMENTVerb Movement and Complementizer Agreement • March 22nd, 1999
There can be little doubt that the verb second character of Dutch and other Germanic languages is among the most intriguing phenomena to be explained by the theory of syntax. On a descriptive level, we understand ’verb second’ to mean that the finite verb is in the second position in all types of main clauses, where we understand ’second’ to mean ’immediately following the first constituent’. The types of main clauses that display verb second in Dutch are the neutral word order subject initial main clauses, topicalizations (where a constituent other than the subject precedes the finite verb), and questions introduced by a wh-word ((1)-(3), respectively).1
