This volume provides the most exhaustive and comprehensive treatment available of the Verb Second property, which has been a central topic in formal syntax for decades. While Verb Second has traditionally been considered a feature primarily of the Germanic languages, this book shows that it is much more widely attested cross-linguistically than previously thought, and explores the multiple empirical, theoretical, and experimental puzzles that remain in developing an account of the phenomenon. Uniquely, formal theoretical work appears alongside studies of psycholinguistics, language production, and language acquisition. The range of languages investigated is also broader than in previous work: while novel issues are explored through the lens of the more familiar Germanic data, chapters also cover Verb Second effects in languages such as Armenian, Dinka, Tohono O’odham, and in the Celtic, Romance, and Slavonic families. The analyses have wide-ranging consequences for our understanding of the language faculty, and will be of interest to researchers and students from advanced undergraduate level upwards in the fields of syntax, historical linguistics, and language acquisition.

Old French and old Occitan both have access to the resumptive particle SI that occurs in second position of the clause, between a fronted constituent and the finite verb. In this paper, the information-structural properties of the particle are compared and it is shown that it may be used to introduce new information in old Occitan, an option that is not available in old French. Further, an analysis for SI is proposed. It is suggested that SI may be both a head and a phrase, something which has consequences for the analysis of the fronted element of the clause.

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Introductory notes to the special issue on Residual Verb Second in Romance  _________________________________________________________________________________   DEDICATION We dedicate this volume to the memory of Manuel Leonetti, an exceptional linguist and a dear friend and colleague who left us too early.

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