Rethinking ‘residual’ Verb Second

Abstract

The term “residual Verb Second ” is a misnomer for English, because V2 is, in fact, still productive in the language. Evidence for this comes from a previously undescribed negative inversion phenomenon innovated very recently in varieties of English. An analysis is proposed for how such a restrictive V2 system could, nevertheless, be productive, appealing to learner-driven models of language change in which novel structures can arise as artefacts of the acquisition procedure. Specifically, it is argued that innovative V2 arises when acquirers postulate a novel clause type characterized by a left-edge operator, which they analyse as a V2 environment by analogy with other non-declarative clause types involving such structures (e.g. interrogatives). This finds support from other cases of innovative V2 in English, Scots, and Afrikaans. Overall, we are left with a clearer picture of the status of V2 in English, and what it takes to innovate new V2 environments cross-linguistically.

What is “residual verb second”? And what does Romance have to do with it?

“…However, it is worth asking whether there is any implicational relation between these two senses of the term that would warrant their being collapsed in this way, and, indeed, whether both senses actually hold of the languages typically described as being "residual V2". As we will see below (and as argued in Sailor 2017Sailor , 2020), the answer to both questions is no.…”

“…The historical sense of residual in (12b) simply follows from the everyday meaning of the word (unlike the formal sense), so collapsing the two senses in ( 12) is only valid to the extent that all vestigial V2 systems are formally constrained as in (12a). Unfortunately, this is not the case: while the literature on residual V2 generally does not distinguish between these two senses of the term, they can in fact be doubly dissociated (Sailor 2020). Specifically, just as the formal sense in (12a) makes no statement about the diachronic origins of a particular V2 system, the historical sense in (12b) is similarly neutral with respect to the generality or robustness of the V2 pattern it describes.…”

“…In fact, the problem gets worse, because it is also possible to show the inverse of the above: namely, that (12a) holds of a V2 system when (12b) does not. Sailor (2020) argues that even a highly constrained V2 system such as the one in English can nevertheless become productive, with acquirers extending the limited V2 pattern to novel clausal environments (see §5). Such cases of innovative V2 are prima facie not vestiges of an earlier grammar, and so (12b) does not hold; on the other hand, even in these innovative V2 environments, the system is constrained in all the familiar ways (only arising in non-declaratives, only with T-to-C, etc.…”

“…However, recall from the terminological discussion above that the motivation for teasing apart the formal vs. historical senses of the term is partly built on the observation that even partial-V2 systems (in the formal sense) can be productive, with learners extending the pattern to e.g. novel clause types (Sailor 2020). Extension of V2 thus plays an important role in the overall picture we are developing for partial V2, especially in the distinction between partial-V2 systems and residual V2 in non-V2 languages.…”

“…More to the point: given the everyday historical meaning of the term, its use for the formal sense in (12a) is simply confusing-(12a) refers to syntactic restrictions, not diachrony, and therefore ought to be expressed by a suitably syntactic term. Following Sailor (2020), we suggest use of the term partial V2 for the formal sense in (12a), to reflect the restricted syntax and distribution of the phenomenon (and to evoke parallels with the terminology used to describe similar restrictions in other phenomena, e.g. partial null subject languages).…”