How Complex Are Complex Predicates?

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Abstract. This paper argues that clause union/restructuring constructions such as verb clusters in German do not involve head clustering in the form of (lexical or derived) complex head formation. I provide several arguments showing that clause union properties are licensed in the absence of complex head formation and that complex head formation hence cannot be seen as a condition on clause union/restructuring. Complex head approaches are compared to syntactic complementation approaches—in particular, to an approach where the verbs of a restructuring construction project independent VPs that include all the internal arguments associated with the particular verbs. A series of empirical facts are considered (constituency, word order, modification, event structure properties, and nominalizations) that all point to the conclusion that these constructions involve regular VPs rather than complex V‐V heads. Although it is not excluded that complex head approaches could be adjusted to accommodate these facts, the main advantage of the VP‐complementation approach is that the sum of the properties discussed follows without additional assumptions from the structure suggested and that this approach also correctly predicts which constructions are excluded.