Abstract
In his Morphosyntax of verb movement: a minimalist approach to the syntax of Dutch (1997) zwart argues for an alternative analysis to the traditional analysis2 of the word order variation that exists in West Gennanic subject initial main clauses and embedded clauses. This alternative analysis is a heavily revised version of the one Zwart presented in his 1993 dissertation. The revised version focuses on a smaller section of Dutch syntax than the preceding work and revolves crucially around a proposal of feature movement and the interaction between syntax and morphology. It also deviates from the traditional analysis in the assumption that the underlying word order for Dutch is SVO and that all functional projections are head initial. Zwart (1997) furthermore claims that the analysis presented for Dutch can be carried over to the other West Germanic languages. At least one of these languages, Afrikaans, is not discussed by Zwart and my main interest in this article is to see whether Zwart's proposed analysis holds when applied to this language.
Highlights
In his Morphosyntax ofverb movement: a minimalist approach 10 the syntax ofDutch, Zwart argues for an alternative analysis to the traditional analysis of the word order variation in West Germanic subject initial main clauses and embedded clauses
Weak features only trigger movement after Spell-Out, which is in accordance with the Procrastinate principle. Another consequence of the minimalist approach is that only the formal features in the lexical feature bundle move overtly, since they are the only ones that need to be checked (Chomsky 1995:261f.) And because the overtly moved formal features cannot be interpreted in lhe morphology it is assumed that the other features follow in covert movement
Following Den Besten (1977) Zwart concludes that the finite verb in inversion constructions occupies the same position as the complementiser in embedded clauses, i.e. in C The highest functional projection in subject initial main clauses is AgrSP
Summary
In his Morphosyntax ofverb movement: a minimalist approach to the syntax ofDutch (1997) zwart argues for an alternative analysis to the traditional analysis of the word order variation that exists in West Gennanic subject initial main clauses and embedded clauses. This alternative analysis is a heavily revised version of the one Zwart presented in his 1993 dissertation. The revised version focuses on a smaller section of Dutch syntax than the preceding work and revolves crucially around a proposal of feature movement and the interaction between syntax and morphology. At least one of these languages, Afrikaans, is not discussed by Zwart and my main interest in this article is to see whether Zwart's proposed analysis holds when applied to this language
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