Verb placement and verb movement

Abstract

This chapter surveys and analyses the rich variation in verb placement and verb movement operations which is attested in the history of French. The analysis developed suggests than an original SOV grammar where the finite verb remains in-situ is reanalysed as one with optional verb movement to the left periphery during the Classical Latin period, with this movement itself reanalysed as systematic V-to-C movement in certain colloquial and late Latin texts. Until the Renaissance, French is also argued to feature systematic V-to-C movement, albeit to distinct heads within the left periphery. Novel data is presented to suggest that as part of an SVO grammar, French has featured verb movement to the high tense-aspect-mood field since the 16th century. A diachronic and synchronic analysis of verb–subject inversion in interrogatives and verb movement in imperatives is also presented. The chapter concludes with a formal parametric analysis of both unmarked and marked verb movement from Latin to Modern French.