The correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol.2, 1837–1843: Edited by Frederick Burkhardt and Sydney Smith. Pp. 603. Cambridge University Press, 1987. £30.00 ($37.50)

Abstract

This paper aims to show that the mainstream Generative analysis for verb second (V2) languages – a functional head, C0, is responsible for V2 word order – does not hold up to scrutiny when confronted with bilingual data. Dutch-English code-switched data were used to investigate V2 word order in the main clause – but also svo/sov word order in the subordinate clause, an issue that has relevance to the question at hand – using an acceptability judgment task to test how native bilinguals judge code-switched sentences in a verb second context and subordinate clauses. Novel results with regards to V2 word order are presented in combination with a corroboration of established patterns for subordinate clause word order. The results indicate that the language of the finite verb determines word order in both main and subordinate clauses.