Getting verb movement

Abstract

Child language features a striking difference in root clauses between finite (auxiliary) verbs (in IP) and root infinitives and participles (in VP). Fronted nonfinite verbs are virtually never attested in child language. However, it is shown that there is no one-to-one correlation between position and inflection since finite verbs do not always front. It is argued that a derivational treatment in terms of verb fronting is the proper way to establish a relationship between the two verbal positions. Differences between developmental stages in Dutch, English, and French are accounted for by making crucial use of the status of T as a content-licensing head and the strength of the formal finiteness feature on the functional head T, and by exploiting the status of modality, aspect, and negation as heads potentially blocking movement from V to T. While special attention is paid to the separate status of auxiliaries in acquisitional and historical development, a novel perspective on linguistic change is sketched by relating data from verb placement in the developmental stages of French to verb-placement facts in the history of English. An integrated account of finiteness and verb fronting is provided to explain their inverse relationship