| description | Jan-Wouter Zwart. 2017. An argument against the syntactic nature of verb movement. In Laura R. Bailey, Michelle Sheehan, eds., Order and structure in syntax I: Word order and syntactic structure (Open Generative Syntax 1). Berlin: Language Science Press. 29-47. |
| type | Reviewed book chapter. |
| ID | 2017c | 160 | DOI | first version September 20, 2015; final version April 21, 2016 |
| origin | This paper grew out of research into the status of periphrastic verb forms in a model of grammar where inflectional morphology is the postsyntactic lexicalization of terminals and their features. I was interested in developing an argument relating to the (post)syntactic status of verb movement that makes crucial reference to the PF-side of the grammar, being somewhat dissatisfied with the status quaestionis on the LF-side. It was submitted as a contribution to a Festschrift for Anders Holmberg (University of Newcastle). |
| keywords | periphrasis, relative past, morphology-syntax relation, perfect, auxiliaries, realizational morphology, verb clusters, IPP, anteriority, verb-second |
| summary | Recent research into the nature of periphrasis converges on the view that periphrastic forms occupy cells in morphological paradigms. This paper argues that the relative past (‘perfect’) in Dutch should be understood as periphrastic in this sense. Adopting the current minimalist view on the relation between morphology and syntax, in which inflectional morphemes are not generated in syntax but realized postsyntactically in a morphological component, the analysis leads to the conclusion that the relative past’s auxiliary is not an element of narrow syntax either. The paper argues that this approach simplifies the syntactic analysis of Dutch verb clusters. The upshot of the analysis is that since auxiliaries undergo verb-second, verb movement must be a postsyntactic operation, as suggested by Chomsky (2001). |
| related | full text; 166 |
