Frame setters and microvariation of subject-initial Verb Second

Abstract

The chapter focuses on V3 patterns in West Flemish in which a subject-initial non-inverted V2 clause is preceded by an adverbial adjunct which modifies temporal or modal coordinates of the associated clause, in apparent violation of the V2 constraint. The pattern is not available in many other varieties of Dutch, including Standard Dutch. The chapter summarizes the main distributional and interpretive properties of the initial constituent, focusing on, among other things, the fact that for its interpretation, the initial adjunct cannot be reconstructed to a clause-internal position. On the basis of the distributional and interpretive properties of the initial constituent, it is argued that these V3 patterns are in line with V2 syntax because the initial constituent is extrasentential. The chapter develops the discourse syntax for main clause external constituents and argues that the micro-variation observed can be captured by the hypothesis that there is micro-variation between Standard Dutch and West Flemish in terms of the derivation of subject-initial V2 root clauses.