A Cartographic Approach to Verb Movement and Two Types of FinP V2 in German

: In this paper, two syntactic configurations are considered that involve V-to-C movement in present-day German: Verb Second in run-of-the-mill declarative clauses and Verb Second in non-assertive embedded contexts. Along the lines of the cartographic approach and on the basis of syntactic and semantic evidence, it is proposed that in both constructs, the finite verb targets neither Force ◦ nor the head of any other projection hosting a moved constituent in its specifier, but, rather, that it moves into the lowest head in the extended CP layer, namely Fin ◦ . As a result of this, (at least) two types of verb raising to Fin ◦ are to be postulated in this language: one that is triggered by discourse/information structure (V2 1 ) and one that results from mechanical movement to C elicited by an otherwise lacking lexicalization of the relevant left-peripheral head (V2 2 ).


Introduction
Present-day German is a so-called "asymmetric" Verb-Second (henceforth: V2) language.Declarative main clauses exhibit obligatory V-to-C movement, and the topological position to the left of the finite verb (in pre-Rizzian terms: Spec,CP) must be occupied by one XP in order to satisfy an EPP(-like) feature on the left-peripheral projection hosting the verb.In embedded clauses introduced by an overt subordinating conjunction, leftward movement into C is formally blocked by the presence of the complementizer in the same head position standardly targeted by the verb (cf., among many others, Bach 1962;Bierwisch 1963;Den Besten [1977] 1983;Thiersch 1978;Poletto 2002;Adger 2003;Holmberg 2015).These two configurations are illustrated in (1) and (2), respectively: ( With respect to the operation that triggers the movement of the part of the predicate bearing the tense-aspect-mood features into C • in main clauses, Bayer and Freitag (2020) argue that the lexical component of the finite verb is always interpreted in situ, i.e., in V.In the authors' approach, verb raising is thus a purely syntactic effect in German and does not result from semantic-feature checking.
The former entail a derivation of the type illustrated in (3a), in which the finite verb cyclically moves to Force • after leaving a trace in Fin • -thereby inducing a "bottleneck effect" (Haegeman 1996;Roberts 2004;Cardinaletti 2010;Hsu 2017).The pre-verbal constituent is raised from its middle-field 1 base-generation site to Spec,ForceP via Spec,FinP.In the latter position, the moved constituent leaves a trace that blocks any further movement from the IP/VP area, so that this specifier functions as a "bottleneck" filtering the material entering the left edge of the clause.This operationalization is derived from the fact that ForceP-V2 languages are supposed not to allow for any exceptions to the V2 constraint, which is why ForceP, the highest clause-internal projection in the Rizzi (1997) Split CP, is taken to be the landing site of both elements.The term "FinP-V2 language", on the other hand, refers to a syntactic derivation in which both the verb and the XP in initial position target the lowest left-peripheral projection, FinP, as their landing site (3b).This pertains to the possibility of having V3 or similar patterns involving a larger portion of the C-domain under specific conditions: (3) a.
[ ForceP XP i [ Force Differently, e.g., from Old Romance (Salvesen 2013;Poletto 2014;Wolfe 2016Wolfe , 2018)), other Germanic varieties like Cimbrian (Bidese et al. 2012;Cognola 2013) or Kiezdeutsch (Wiese 2012;Freywald et al. 2015;Walkden 2017;Lowell Sluckin and Bunk 2023) or German contact varieties like Iowa German (Rocker 2022), as well as older stages of the German language, which are claimed to exhibit a relaxed ("low") V2 in most theoretically informed studies of the last decades (cf., e.g., Axel 2007;Petrova 2012;Walkden 2014), contemporary German is generally classified as a strict ("high") V2 system with a ForceP-V2 rule.This is assumed to be corroborated by the ungrammaticality of linearizations like (4a) and (4b), showing that neither two arguments nor a fronted past participle followed by an argument seem to possibly be hosted in the left periphery: In this paper, I propose a novel taxonomy of V2 in (present-day) German based on two premises: (i) both distributionally and interpretively, V2 is not a uniform rule, but rather a constraint that is to be defined locally, i.e., there are different types of V2 that have to be related to corresponding phenomena at the syntax-semantics interface; (ii) these different types of V2 follow from different left-peripheral configurations.In particular, I will contend that V2 in German is basically (i.e., with respect to its standard arrangement) a FinP, not a ForceP phenomenon.
In what follows, I will focus on two (of possibly multiple) types of discernible V2 patterns which I contend can be postulated to result from verb movement to Fin • , namely a discourse-related/information-structurally-motivated V2 (V2 1 ) observable in run-of-themill declarative main clauses and a merely syntactic V2 (V2 2 ) that occurs in some types of asyndetic embedded clauses.The argumentation pursued in this paper is not intended to be exhaustive with respect to the V2 types attested in present-day German, but only refers to the arrangements addressed here.
The paper is structured as follows: in Section 2, it is shown that declarative-mainclause V2 in German cannot be analyzed as a ForceP phenomenon in light of the presence of some surface-Verb-Late(r) 3 patterns that suggest finite-verb movement to a much lower head in the CP domain; in Section 3, some arguments in favor of a FinP analysis of one of the V-to-C patterns attested in embedded contexts are discussed.Section 4 concludes and summarizes the results.

Preliminary Remarks
As observed above, V2 is to be defined as a generalized rule for (declarative) main clauses necessarily involving a combination of leftward movement of the finite verb and cyclic movement of one constituent via Spec,FinP into some left-peripheral specifier in which it appears at PF. 4 In this section, it will be proposed that these two operations target, respectively, Fin • and some higher CP specifier depending on the grammatical or information-structural status of the constituent preceding the verb.In other words, main-clause V2 is to be treated as a non-Spec-Head configuration.
Before addressing the relevant data, a theoretical premise needs to be made: in the present account, V2 is not a (primarily) linear constraint, but rather an inviolable structural rule of the grammar of German.The structural and not (only) descriptive nature of the V2 constraint consists of a combination of V-to-C and movement of only one phrase into a dedicated C-specifier, i.e., it entails that multiple XP-raising is excluded but does not impose a ban on generating-under specific conditions-some material spelled out in the sentence directly in the left periphery.Therefore, not all surface word orders of the type "XP > finite verb" in all languages are to be called "V2".V2 in the strict sense results from the application of a systematic progression of derivational operations invariably leading to one or a (very) limited set of possible left-peripheral word-order options, as is the case in German.The available options must all involve a CP head and the intrasentential domain preceding that position.In this sense, one may assume that two sentences of English like ( 5) and ( 6), which are descriptively identical with respect to the lexicalization of their left domains (XP > Vfin), are not even comparable from a structural point of view, i.e., in relation to the operations taking place covertly to derive them.For structures of the type in (5a), the finite verb is standardly assumed to remain in the extended verb projection, with the inflectional features percolating from the higher I • to the VP head (Haegeman 2006b, p. 169) (5b).In fact, the area between the subject and the verb in this sentence could in principle be occupied by further phrases (viz.maximal projections), as exemplarily illustrated in (5c).This is not the case in (6a), where the overt word order unfailingly follows from the application of a rule moving the wh-phrase into some left-peripheral (CP) specifier generally identified with FocP (Rizzi 1997) or whP (e.g., Shlonsky and Soare 2011) and the finite verb being raised to C • ((5b); example from Haegeman and Guéron 1999, p. 172).In the standard case, indeed, no full constituents may surface between a preposed wh-element and the finite verb (6c).Wh-questions are in fact one of the structures of present-day English exhibiting residual V2 (Rizzi 1996): (5) Non-V2 a.
Mary read that book. b.
[ IP Mary x [ *Whom definitely will she meet after lunch?
While in languages like English it is the IP layer that is occupied in unmarked declarative clauses of the type illustrated in (5) (i.e., without clause-initial topics, foci, etc.), in German the linearization of matrix structures is primarily a CP phenomenon.
Differently from what the general idea of a restriction bearing this name would suggest (and crucially for the point to be made in the present paper); however, the term "V2" does not imply that the finite verb must necessarily be the second element linearly surfacing in the clause.Rather, it entails that only one XP may (but must) enter-or be merged into-the left periphery of the clause in order to satisfy an EPP(-like) feature requiring that Spec,CP not be empty.In other words, the very implications of V2 are exclusively to be understood in structural, not in linear/descriptive terms.This (not literal) formulation of the constraint can be taken to create at least two tangible expectations: that most main clauses are, with respect to their statistical frequency, de facto linearly While in languages like English it is the IP layer that is occupied in unmarked declarative clauses of the type illustrated in (5) (i.e., without clause-initial topics, foci, etc.), in German the linearization of matrix structures is primarily a CP phenomenon.
Differently from what the general idea of a restriction bearing this name would suggest (and crucially for the point to be made in the present paper); however, the term "V2" does not imply that the finite verb must necessarily be the second element linearly surfacing in the clause.Rather, it entails that only one XP may (but must) enter-or be merged into-the left periphery of the clause in order to satisfy an EPP(-like) feature requiring that Spec,CP not be empty.In other words, the very implications of V2 are exclusively to be understood in structural, not in linear/descriptive terms.This (not literal) formulation of the constraint can be taken to create at least two tangible expectations: that most main clauses are, with respect to their statistical frequency, de facto linearly V2.Clauses with a V3, V4, etc., word order, if possible in a given configuration, will represent exceptions within their corresponding rule: if there is no specific interface condition licensing the presence of additional material in the C-domain, the clause will have an overt V2 arrangement; -that Verb-Late(r) patterns may still be possible under the condition that they not violate the constraint imposed by the combination of EPP and bottleneck effect.
In the next paragraphs, it will be shown that these expectations are, in fact, mirrored by the data and that this is a key argument in favor of a formalization of German (matrixclause) V2 as a FinP phenomenon.
One of the main problems concerning the theoretical treatment of such patterns in the literature is that the different phenomena are mainly addressed individually and/or based on very different premises.This is due to the fact that the development of an allin-one solution to account for the resulting arrangements necessarily implies a number of different postulations about the nature of the left periphery of German (e.g., concerning the interaction between Merge and Move operations) that need to be accepted at once.In (7), some of these structures apparently violating the V2 constraint addressed above are exemplified: In (7a), illustrating a left dislocation, a fronted DP is taken up by a d-pronominal resumptive bearing the same φ-features as the dislocate occurring preverbally, i.e., in the socalled "prefield". 6Although this is clearly a correlative construction, the two left-peripheral elements appearing to the left of the finite verb do not form a syntactic unit at PF.The structure in (7b), in which an utterance-initial conditional clause is resumed by preverbal dann ('then'), can be characterized-mutatis mutandis-as an adverbial counterpart to (7a).Of course, the type of "agreement" observable between the topicalized XP, which functions as a clausal frame setter here insofar as it circumscribes the frame (one that is projected into a non-actual world) in which the content of the clause is to be interpreted, and the resumptive does not involve any case and number, but these two elements are referentially identical. 7In (7c), a contrastive PP frame setter is linearly followed by a socalled "post-initial marker" (Métrich and Courdier 1995;Pasch et al. 2003;Breindl 2008;Volodina and Weiß 2010;Karagjosova 2012;Lenker 2014;Catasso 2015;Speyer and Weiß 2018) in the prefield.Post-initial markers are originally adverbial, particle-like elements that systematically surface in second position and accompany a fronted full XP with the function of lexicalizing their information-structural status.In the relevant sentence, the contrastive topic in seiner Heimat 'in his homeland' is opposed to the contrastive topic in Chile 'in Chile', which is introduced in the previous sentence, and the marker hingegen 'instead' has a contrastive value, its presence being exclusively licensed by a contrastive XP to its left.In (7d), a frame-setting topic precedes a pronominal subject in the left periphery.This configuration has so far been described in detail in a large amount of literature on urban varieties of German and other V2 languages (for German/Kiezdeutsch, cf., among many others, Wiese 2012; Walkden 2017; Wiese et al. 2020;Lowell Sluckin and Bunk 2023).The pattern, however, while not being very frequent (cf., e.g., the estimates by Speyer (2008) and Wiese and Rehbein (2016), which point to a rate below 0.05%, at least in the consulted corpora), is still productive in spontaneous spoken interaction.Especially in the very last years, a number of researchers have discussed V3 orders of this type in spoken German that do not seem to result from the influence of a multilingual context or language contact (Bunk 2020;Catasso 2021;Breitbarth 2022Breitbarth , 2023)).Note that this wenn-clause-which can be interpreted conditionally or temporally here-is interpreted along the lines of (7b) in that it introduces a condition to or temporal frame for the validity of the content of the main clause.In (7e), a clausal frame setter appears between a topic which is also the subject of the utterance and the finite verb.In (7f), two non-clausal frames appear in the prefield.Note that even though am Sonnabendmorgen 'on Saturday morning' and im frühesten Zug 'on the earliest train' can be assumed to concur to form a "big frame" within which the state/action described in the sentence is to be interpreted, they belong to different semantic clines: the former realizes a temporal, the latter a local reference. 8 These patterns already suggest that even for V2 languages like German, a Split-CP analysis is possibly more adequate than one in which the CP consists of one projection whose specifier can only be occupied by a single XP.In principle, one possibility to make sense of these data would be to analyze constructions like those in (7a), (7b), and (7d) as involving extrasentential Merge of the XP in first position (i.e., base-generation of the highest full constituent in a domain that does not interact with the syntactic computation of the clause-internal area).The structure in (7f) could be treated as an instantiation of a complex PP assembled by adjunction of the right XP (here: im frühesten Zug) to the left constituent (here: am Sonnabendmorgen).However, one would have to admit that at least the configurations in (7c) and (7e) cannot be simply dismissed as "exceptions", since they exemplify quite productive patterns both of colloquial spoken and written Standard German and the first element in their linearization is an argument of the lexical verb which cannot plausibly be assumed to be first-merged clause-externally.
More interesting than the single patterns, however, is the occurrence of multiple phenomena in the same sentence, which has been mainly neglected in the literature on present-day German so far (for some exceptions, see Speyer and Weiß 2018;Catasso 2021;Breitbarth 2022).This interplay provides additional information not only with respect to a multiple-specifier analysis of the preverbal area, but also-crucially for the scope of the present work-in relation to the actual position of the finite verb in the left periphery of the main clause.
In his model of the CP domain (8), Rizzi (1997) assumes that the left (pre-IP) edge of the sentence consists of an array of highly specialized projections that host or lexicalize grammatical features such as interrogativity or information-structural categories such as Focus and Topic (the latter being syntactically recursive; also cf.Frascarelli and Hinterhölzl 2007;Hinterhölzl 2017).The CP area is introduced by ForceP, which encodes clause type and illocution, and is delimited in the immediate pre-middle-field area by FinP, which is responsible for finiteness: (8) ForceP > TopP* > FocP > TopP* > FinP > IP . . .

Main-Clause V2 as V-to-Fin
In the approach advocated in this paper, an optimal way to account for the data in ( 7) is assuming that the constituents surfacing in these patterns are positioned in the clause-internal portion of the left periphery (i.e., below ForceP) at PF and the finite verb is pronounced no higher than Fin • in a model combining the presence of EPP/bottleneck and a Split CP that can be summarized as follows: ■ Left dislocations sensu lato (that is, constructions like (7a) and ( 7b)) are derived by cyclic leftward movement of the topic (DISL in the representation below) from its basegeneration site in the middle field of the clause into the specifier in which they surface (one that is compatible with the interpretive features of the constituent, e.g., with contrastive or aboutness topicality) (cf.Cinque 1977).This cyclic raising operation involves an intermediate pit-stop in Spec,FinP, where the XP leaves a trace that blocks any further movement into the left periphery.In the cases illustrated in (7), which exhibit linear V3, the trace in Spec,FinP is pronounced (i.e., it is externalized as a trace spell-out that has the phonetic substance of a resumptive) (9a).The spell-out of the resumptive (RES in the representation below) element, however, is optional: if this element is silent, there are no consequences whatsoever for the grammatical acceptability or the semantic interpretation of the sentence.The resumptiveless (that is, non-redundant) version of the sentence is the one commonly occurring in the standard language (9b)-(9c).This analysis is in line with the idea sketched above that the principle underlying the bottleneck effect is inviolable and that this type of linear V3 in fact corresponds to a structural instantiation of V2: 9 (9) a. [ ForceP [ TopP [DISL]  we-NOM at home 'If it rains, we will stay at home.' 10 ■ (Both DP and adverbial) left dislocation can co-occur with the pattern in (7c).Although some analyses propose that contrastive markers like hingegen in (7c) are part of the XP topicalized into the left periphery (cf., e.g., Volodina and Weiß 2010), more recent studies have bolstered the hypothesis that such elements are base-generated in the head position of some left-peripheral projection hosting a corresponding topic (Speyer and Weiß 2018;Catasso 2015Catasso , 2021) ) ("KP" in the example below). 11If this idea is on the right track, neither post-initial markers per se nor a combination of left dislocation and topic particles like hingegen violate the V2 constraint, since only one XP is moved into the left periphery.Also, in this case, the verb cannot move past Fin • .This configuration is shown in ( 10 [ ForceP [ KP [DISL] x [ K location and topic particles like hingegen violate the V2 constraint, since only one XP is moved into the left periphery.Also, in this case, the verb cannot move past Fin°.This configuration is shown in ( 10): (10) a.The data in (7d) and (7e), in which an adjunct and an argument co-occur in the preverbal domain, suggest that (i) the extended CP of German includes at least two positions in which frame setters may surface, and (ii) a frame setter can be moved (like in ( 7b)), but it can also be base-generated in some kind of Last Resort configuration that prevents the structure from crashing by violating the V2 constraint, as in these two examples.In (7d)-(7e), this is apparent because the other XP in the prefield is necessarily the one interactive with the V2 syntax of the clause (in both cases, it is the subject of the clause) and because neither wennnor the sobald-clause can leave a trace in Spec,FinP. 12What is more, the adjuncts are separated from the rest of the material in the CP domain by a comma intonation (which is also empirically confirmed in Breitbarth's (2022) analysis for structures like (7e)).This position is, in fact, already occupied by the other constituent (as is arguably the case in (7d)) or by its trace (as in (7e)), and as outlined above, only one XP can enter the left periphery.The topological positions in which the adjuncts in these two examples surface are situated above and below (one of) the positions hosting topics, respectively.The higher of these positions, indeed, is linearly followed by an indefinite pronoun (i.e., by a non-topical, phonologically weak element that plausibly surfaces in Spec,FinP) in (7d), but can also precede full-XP topics, which are arguably hosted in one of the Spec,TopPs also independently proposed by Rizzi (1997). 13In (11), these positions are neutrally labeled "YP" and "ZP".By assuming this derivation, the force of the bottleneck restriction is preserved, since only one XP has entered the left periphery in the configuration assumed here.Again, the most immediate consequence with respect to the position of the finite verb is that this element must surface in Fin • in the overt syntax.Also note that in both structures, the trace spell-out of the argumental topic can optionally be pronounced in Spec,FinP (cf.(12a)-(12b), in which two of the corpus examples mentioned so far have been accordingly modeled): 14 (one that is compatible with the interpretive features of the constituent, e.g., with contrastive or aboutness topicality) (cf.Cinque 1977 andGrewendorf 2002a).This cyclic raising operation involves an intermediate pit-stop in Spec,FinP, where the XP leaves a trace that blocks any further movement into the left periphery.In the cases illustrated in (7), which exhibit linear V3, the trace in Spec,FinP is pronounced (i.e., it is externalized as a trace spell-out that has the phonetic substance of a resumptive) (9a).The spell-out of the resumptive (RES in the representation below) element, however, is optional: if this element is silent, there are no consequences whatsoever for the grammatical acceptability or the semantic interpretation of the sentence.The resumptiveless (that is, non-redundant) version of the sentence is the one commonly occurring in the standard language (9b)-( 9c).This analysis is in line with the idea sketched above that the principle underlying the bottleneck effect is inviolable and that this type of linear V3 in fact corresponds to a structural instantiation of V2: 9 (9) a. [ForceP [TopP [DISL]x …  (Both DP and adverbial) left dislocation can co-occur with the pattern in (7c).Although some analyses propose that contrastive markers like hingegen in (7c) are part of the XP topicalized into the left periphery (cf., e.g., Volodina and Weiß 2010), more recent studies have bolstered the hypothesis that such elements are base-generated in the head position of some left-peripheral projection hosting a corresponding topic (Speyer and Weiß 2018;Catasso 2015Catasso , 2021) ) ("KP" in the example below). 11If this idea is on the right track, neither post-initial markers per se nor a combination of left dislocation and topic particles like hingegen violate the V2 constraint, since only one XP is moved into the left periphery.Also, in this case, the verb cannot move past Fin°.This configuration is shown in ( 10 base generation (one that is compatible with the interpretive features of the constituent, e.g., wi contrastive or aboutness topicality) (cf.Cinque 1977 andGrewendorf 2002a).Th cyclic raising operation involves an intermediate pit-stop in Spec,FinP, where the X leaves a trace that blocks any further movement into the left periphery.In the cas illustrated in (7), which exhibit linear V3, the trace in Spec,FinP is pronounced (i.e., is externalized as a trace spell-out that has the phonetic substance of a resumptiv (9a).The spell-out of the resumptive (RES in the representation below) element, how ever, is optional: if this element is silent, there are no consequences whatsoever f the grammatical acceptability or the semantic interpretation of the sentence.The r sumptiveless (that is, non-redundant) version of the sentence is the one common occurring in the standard language (9b)-( 9c).This analysis is in line with the id sketched above that the principle underlying the bottleneck effect is inviolable an that this type of linear V3 in fact corresponds to a structural instantiation of V2: 9 (9) a. [ForceP [TopP [DISL]x …


(Both DP and adverbial) left dislocation can co-occur with the pattern in (7c).A hough some analyses propose that contrastive markers like hingegen in (7c) are pa of the XP topicalized into the left periphery (cf., e.g., Volodina and Weiß 2010), mo recent studies have bolstered the hypothesis that such elements are base-generat in the head position of some left-peripheral projection hosting a corresponding top (Speyer and Weiß 2018;Catasso 2015Catasso , 2021) ) ("KP" in the example below). 11If this id is on the right track, neither post-initial markers per se nor a combination of left d location and topic particles like hingegen violate the V2 constraint, since only one X is moved into the left periphery.Also, in this case, the verb cannot move past Fin This configuration is shown in ( 10 As to the pattern presented in (7f), where two distinct but semantically compatible adjuncts linearly precede the finite verb, it can be assumed that these are assembled into a complex XP prior to movement to the left periphery, but that they preserve their plasticity within this phrase in that they can in principle be separated-if necessaryonce they have reached the CP domain.In fact, the left-peripheral "big frame" in a sentence like (13a) can, for instance, and given the appropriate context: (i) be "interrupted" by an intervening post-initial particle (13b); (ii) precede as a whole a post-initial particle (13c); (iii) be taken up by a preverbal adverbial resumptive (13d); and (vi) be resumed as in (13d) with an intervening (13e) post-initial marker or a post-initial particle following the XP (13f): If the assumptions about the makeup of the left periphery of German made so far are correct, these data suggest that in contexts like (13), the "big frame" gestern im Bus ('yesterday in the bus') is moved from the middle field into the left periphery, thereby leaving a trace in Spec,FinP that can be either pronounced ((13d), ( 13e) and ( 13f)) or silent ((13a) and ( 13c)), and reaches its surface position either as a block (arguably in (13a), (13c), (13d) and (13f)) or in a "split" configuration ((13b) and ( 13e)) in which, I suggest, only the component of the "big frame" that is to be interpreted contrastively is further moved to the higher specifier in whose head aber ('however') is generated, while the lower, presumably less salient part im Bus is "stranded" in an intermediate Top-position between the higher specifier and FinP.The higher and the lower specifier can be preliminarily identified as the YP and ZP illustrated in (11) above.Thus, the projections labeled "YP" and "ZP" here are in principle both able to host base-generated or moved constituents given the relevant context: 15 ever, is optional: if this element is silent, there are no consequences w the grammatical acceptability or the semantic interpretation of the sen sumptiveless (that is, non-redundant) version of the sentence is the o occurring in the standard language (9b)-( 9c).This analysis is in line sketched above that the principle underlying the bottleneck effect is that this type of linear V3 in fact corresponds to a structural instantiatio I take the data presented so far to provide strong evidence in favor of the assumption that the finite verb does not move to Force • in run-of-the-mill (declarative) main clauses, but occupies a lower, pre-IP head position.This is due to the fact that the single V3 patterns addressed in this section and in particular the simultaneous co-occurrence of multiple Verb-Late(r) phenomena in one and the same sentence necessitate more than one intrasentential preverbal specifier for the structure to be derived correctly.The very position in which the finite verb surfaces, I suggest, cannot be one of the heads between FinP and ForceP (i.e., e.g., Top • or Foc • ), either.This is quite apparent if one considers that the only sensible configuration that would allow this assumption is one in which the finite verb is attracted to the head of the projection hosting a moved constituent in its specifier, since this XP is supposed to be the one interacting with the V2 syntax of the clause.However, the relative variation observable in the CP domain of German makes this hypothesis very implausible.According to this idea, one would expect the verb to be raised into the head of the TopP hosting der Hans in a sentence like (15).The actual linearization of the utterance, however, is not compatible with this derivation, since der Hans occurs in a sequence in which it is followed by other elements correlatively bound to it (here, the contrastive marker aber and the resumptive der) or independently occurring in the left periphery (here, the sobald-adjunct): Assuming that the finite verb occupies Force • in a structure like (15) amounts to implying that the remaining left-peripheral elements are either all positioned in Spec,ForceP-a possibility that can easily be ruled out a priori-or that some or all of them are situated clause-externally (above ForceP).The latter option is not very appealing considering that der Hans, the XP surfacing in the highest position, is the subject of the clause and must therefore have been moved into the specifier in which it appears.
I conclude from this that in (declarative) main clauses, the finite verb systematically occupies Fin • and cannot be moved past that position. 16All patterns illustrated in this section are-structurally-V2 word orders that are realized in different linear variants: V3, V4, and so on.V2 as a structural constraint is derived by (cyclically) moving the finite verb from V • to Fin • and (cyclically) raising one XP into one of the specifiers in the Cdomain via Spec,FinP, thereby satisfying the EPP(-like) feature of Comp and correctly deriving the bottleneck effect of V2 languages like German.All Verb-Late(r) patterns can be analyzed as implying a combination of Merge and movement that produces the observable configurations.
After all, it comes as little surprise that Fin • is assumed to host the verb: this is the projection primarily dedicated to the encoding of finiteness in Rizzi's model, one that contains "a tense specification which matches the one expressed on the lower inflectional system" (Rizzi 1997, p. 283;also cf., among others, Haegeman 1996;Roberts 2004).This is corroborated by the observation that multiple elements can surface in the preverbal domain of a main clause, as illustrated above.The postulation that the verb is moved into Force • in declarative clauses would lead to the (undesirable) conclusion that two linearizations like those in (13a) and (13f) should correspond to radically different underlying structures although they are grosso modo semantically equivalent if one abstracts away from the information-structural details that may minimally differentiate them from each other.
Moreover, ForceP can be activated independently of its lexicalization.If we assume that Force hosts an operator in main clauses defining the clause-typing and illocutionary attributes of a sentence, this projection need not be the target of explicit V-movement.In this sense, the Verb-Late(r) patterns investigated in this section provide a third factor corroborating this assumption.Note that this does by no means imply that ForceP V2 does not exist in any language system, but only that present-day German declarative clauses do not represent an ideal context for this kind of derivation.In ( 16), a simplified model of the left periphery of German (adapted to Rizzi's (1997) seminal proposal) is sketched according to the assumptions made here.In ForceP, clause type and illocution are encoded; in the specifiers of the projections labeld "YP"/"KP" in ( 16), contrastive topics and adjuncts are hosted when the sentence is pronounced; in the corresponding head position, a post-initial marker can optionally be spelled out; Spec,TopP is the landing site of non-contrastive topics, Spec,WhP of interrogative constituents; the specifier of the projection labeled "ZP" hosts non-contrastive adjuncts; SpecFinP functions as the bottleneck of the left edge of the clause and as the locus of the EPP; its head is the position into which the finite verb is moved: In sum, in this section it has been proposed that V2 is a FinP phenomenon in declarative (and other types of) main clauses.In what follows, a second type of (FinP) V2 will be taken into consideration to show that also in (some) embedded contexts, the idea of V-to-Fin movement seems to be more adequate than what V-to-Force raising would imply.

Selecting Predicates and Subordinate V2
In German, subordinate structures that realize an argument of the main-clause lexical verb are typically introduced by the complementizer dass ('that') (17a).At least some of these structures can be assumed to be both syntactically and semantically dependent on their matrix (cf., e.g., Hooper and Thompson 1973;Haegeman 2006a), i.e., to lack any assertive potential.The presence of a subordinating conjunction in C • blocks the movement of the finite verb into the same position (17b).The complementary distribution of Comp and Vfin is, in fact, one of the main tenets of the topological description of the syntax of German (cf., among many others, Den Besten [1977Besten [ ] 1983)).In some cases, however, complementizer deletion is allowed, which in turn licenses (in fact, forces) V-to-C movement (17c).This provides strong evidence in favor of the assumption that the complementizer occupies-if spelled out-the same head position that is targeted by verb movement: In the (grammatical) examples in ( 17), the finite verb can be in the indicative or (here: present) subjunctive both in clause-final and in clause-initial position.The latter can be taken to be (a remnant of) a correlate of subordination in these contexts, i.e., the licensing of the subjunctive in these subordinate clauses, which realize the direct object of the verb meinen ('say', 'believe'), indicates that the structure is deeply embedded into the selecting predicate.In the same environments, the indicative is also possible as an alternative to replace the subjunctive, especially in spoken usage, which is not very productive in conceptually oral texts.However, where the subjunctive is at least possible, the content of the corresponding subordinate clause exhibits no illocutionary force of its own. 17For instance, in the context presented above, the embedded predicate <be forbidden> can by no means be interpreted as an assertion, a direct question or an imperative produced by the speaker: the only possible reading is one in which the content of Hans' (a third person's) saying/thinking is reported.
While it is true that only the absence of an overt Comp can license V-to-C movement, the alternation between verb-final (henceforth: VF) and V2 word order is not systematic.In fact, the conditions regulating the possibility of having V2 are somewhat fuzzy in presentday German, and the acceptability judgments are in part subject to inter-speaker variation and diachronic change (for an overview of the relevant contexts, which will not be reviewed in detail here, cf., e.g., Dal 1966;Dunbar 1985;Reis 1997;Auer 1998;Freywald 2016).
In general, the V2 pattern illustrated in (17c) tends to be possible if the argument clause complements a verbum dicendi/sentiendi/cogitandi or a doxastic predicate realizing a representative speech act, especially when the content of a conversation is reported.In this case, the complement clause is not (or must not be) asserted, 18 and the subject of the matrix predicate can coincide with the speaker (18) or be another individual (19).Indeed, the same pattern is generally allowed if the argument clause complements one of the above-mentioned predicates occurring in a non-assertive (e.g., interrogative, imperative, negative or conditional) main clause (20).The same pattern is also generally possible if the V2 clause is the complement of a DP derived from one of these verbs (21).Moreover, V-to-C movement tends to be licit if the selecting predicate is a (non-modal) desiderative verb or noun ( 22) or any nominal expression not morphologically derived from any of the verbs mentioned so far, whose reference is projected into another world (23).Both variants of the complement clause given in (24a)-( 24b), which are presented in this compact format for space reasons (the relevant punctuation option at the end of each of the sentences is to be referred to the corresponding main-clause governor), could complement any of the matrix predicates in ( 18)-( 23) and exhibit a finite present subjunctive here for illustrative purposes.As noticed above, the corresponding forms can be substituted with a present indicative.A V2 counterpart to the "dass + VF word order" variant is ruled out when the main clause contains a factive predicate ( 25 At this point, the question arises as to how the V2 pattern presented in this section can be syntactified and how the derivation is to be integrated into the Split-CP model of the left periphery of German addressed above.Section 3.2 outlines the definitory features of the category of object clauses examined here, and Section 3.3 proposes a structural analysis along these lines.

Zooming In: Focus on Non-Assertive Object-Clause V2
In order to define the limits of the present investigation, it must be pointed out, as already mentioned above, that not all argument clauses that allow a "dass + verb final"/"∅-V2" alternation in German are non-assertive.In the examples given in Section 3.1 (( 17)-( 24)), the embedded clause has no illocutive potential whatsoever, which licenses the subjunctive.In some cases, however, it is possible to assume that an argument clause may realize a speech act (Kayne 2008;Arsenijević 2009;Müller 2021Müller , 2023)).This depends on the context (see, e.g., Fn. 17) and/or on the nature of the selecting predicate.If it is the case that a matrix clause (DP) subordinating a dassor V2-clause is compatible with the embedding of an assertive reading, the resulting structure will exhibit two fundamental correlates: (i) the verb in the argument clause cannot be in the subjunctive (26); (ii) V2 is virtually always possible, and the clause allows-given the relevant context-for main-clause phenomena such as left dislocation (27a), the licensing of contrastive markers (27b) and combinations of multiple phenomena (27c): Crucially, these phenomena lead to ungrammaticality in syntactic contexts like those addressed in the previous section, where the selecting predicate is not compatible with an embedded assertion.The grammaticality of these sentences would not improve if the verb form exhibited indicative morphology.The relevant data are shown in ( 28 In consideration of these facts, it is reasonable to conclude that: (i) the derivation of the linear arrangements in the V2 examples in ( 26) and ( 27) and that of the examples discussed in Section 3.1 must be different.In the present paper, the former, which seems to make use of a larger portion of the left periphery, will not be further considered.The task of formalizing the corresponding derivation is left to future research, and (ii) V2 is not to be conceptualized as a main-clause phenomenon tout court, but rather needs to be derived locally (viz. in divergent ways in different configurations).It is also possible that these two types of embedded V2 are not the only that exist in the system.
In Section 3.3, it will be proposed that the non-assertive V2 pattern(s) described in Section 3.1 provide a further instantiation of FinP V2, but that the linearization of this structure follows from different premises from those debated in the previous parts of the paper.

Non-Assertive Embedded-Clause V2 as V-to-Fin
In Section 2, it has been contended that the various Verb-Late(r) constructions that are possible in declarative main clauses are not compatible with the idea of a one-specifierone-head left periphery, which precludes a derivation of V2 with the verb targeting Force • (irrespective of how the respective analysis is technically implemented).In those structures, I suggested, ForceP is activated, but not filled with lexical material.
In non-assertive embedded-clause V2, instead, the position immediately preceding the finite verb can de facto host one and only one element.This also holds for nonphrasal items that have been analyzed as heads here (e.g., post-initial particles).Thus, at least in principle, an analysis in which the verb is cyclically moved into Force • and the only remaining intrasentential position to the left of this head, namely Spec,ForceP, is occupied by the constituent surfacing clause-initially is not excluded by purely syntactic (i.e., linearization-based) evidence.However, I will refute this idea here.
The main argument against a ForceP-V2 configuration for these data comes from the fact that these non-asserted embedded clauses clearly do not display any kind of (even weak or pseudo-) illocutionary independence or potential.The V-to-C movement observable in these patterns only depends on the fact that the system does not allow for finite syntactic structures that-simultaneously-are not introduced by a complementizer and exhibit a linear VF arrangement.This amounts to the well-known generalization by Den Besten ([1977] 1983) that Comp and the finite verb basically compete for the same position.
I assume the structures exemplified in (29) to be derived as in (30).I propose that the complementizer dass is merged in Fin • (and not in Force • ) in German, (29a)-(30a) which is also in line with the fact that in a number of West-Germanic (including some German) varieties, subordinating conjunctions forcing a VF word order (may) display overt finiteness morphology matching (or replicating) the features on the verb in final position. 19If the complementizer is not spelled out (as in (29b)), the head of FinP (obligatorily) attracts the finite verb, which in turn activates the raising of an XP to occupy the pre-finite position (namely Spec,FinP).Thus, the finite verb and the constituent in first position occur in a Spec-Head configuration (30b).This operation is information-structurally vacuous, i.e., its only function is the satisfaction of a formal-syntactic requirement (in this case, the EPP-like feature on C) whose violation would cause the derivation to crash.This assumption entails that both in the dass-VL (30a) and in the V2-variant (30b), the main-clause predicate (in the following examples: M.C.) selects a complement clause (i.e., in neutral terms, a CP) that is truncated at FinP, ergo lacks all projections above the one in which the complementizer is base-generated (in dass-clauses) or, in the absence of a complementizer, into which the finite verb is moved: (29) a.This type of V2 can be assumed to result from an (at least partial) instantiation of so-called "meaningless movement" (Cinque 2018), i.e., of movement yielding effects on PF, but no clear effects on LF: the verb is mechanically attracted to Fin • by virtue of a missing lexicalization of this head, and the EPP determines a further obligatory movement operation of a full phrase from the IP/VP area for formal reasons.Note that applying the idea that some operations are not directly or entirely motivated by feature checking is not an ad-hoc solution here: in fact, if Fin • generates a Comp, the finite verb and the XP would obligatorily surface in some lower position. 20

Conclusions
In this paper, I have considered two types of leftward-verb-movement configurations in present-day German (declarative-clause V2 and non-assertive embedded-clause V2) and proposed that both phenomena, while being triggered by different mechanisms, result from V-to-Fin raising.The proposed taxonomy is based on two tenets: (i) that V2 as a linear pattern is not the (by)product of a uniform structural constraint, but one to be defined locally, viz.with respect to a single configuration or a group of configurations at some interface (syntax-semantics, syntax-pragmatics, etc.); and (ii) that these putative different types of structural V2 (intended as a sequence of operations in Narrow Syntax that lead to a certain linearization) result from different derivations.
In particular, the theoretical proposal defended in this paper is that the linearizations of declarative main clauses and non-embedded complement clauses that are observable at PF correspond to two types of discernible FinP-V2 constraints that need to be postulated for German: ■ a discourse-related/information-structurally-motivated V2 (V2 1 ); ■ a merely syntactic V2 (V2 2 ).
V2 1 is a generalized rule for (declarative) main clauses and involves a combination of V-to-Fin movement, (Fin • being the landing site of the finite verb) and cyclic movement of one constituent via Spec,FinP into some left-peripheral specifier (Spec,TopP, Spec,FocP, Spec,WhP, etc.) attracting it in order to satisfy some discourse or information-structural feature.In other words, V2 1 is construed as part of a strategy activating the entire C-domain to make room for (more or less overtly realized) phenomena associated with the presence of the speaker in the utterance.V2 2 , instead, occurs in some types of V2 embedded clauses that do not allow for the realization of an independent speech act.In such structures, the linear order (in particular, raising of the finite verb + one XP into the C-domain) is not driven by any discourse or information-structural operation, but merely depends on the absence of an overt complementizer in C that forces these elements to move overtly.In V2 2 -configurations, I assume the tree to be truncated at FinP, so that the finite verb moves to Fin • just as in V2 1 , and the XP is not able to move into some CP-specifier after deriving the bottleneck/satisfying the EPP feature in FinP: (31) a.
[ForceP [TopP [XP] The distinction proposed here is advantageous for a number of reasons: it provides a structural explanation of the (optional) presence of linear V3 in main, but not in embedded clauses complementing (i.e., in the scope of) non-assertive predicates.
In combination with the bottleneck effect, it also accounts for the ungrammaticality of any Verb-Late(r) configuration that cannot be traced back to the derivational mechanisms spelled out above; -it is compatible with the identical interpretation of V2 2 and verb-final structures in embedded clauses (crucially, main-clause V2 1 cannot instead be realized by means of other linear orders).
Note that the idea of the existence of a ForceP-V2 type is dismissed with respect to the two types considered here, but not in toto, i.e., in relation to other V2 patterns of German not reviewed in the present paper or for other V2 languages.This study may hopefully pave the way for future cartographic investigations of the taxonomy of V2 in German and other languages.
For ease of reference, in this paper I use the expression "Verb-Late(r)" to refer to syntactic configurations in which the finite verb of a formally V2 language is not the second, but the third (V3), fourth (V4), etc. element in the linearization.

4
An anonymous reviewer aptly points out that this is not the case with so-called "V1 declaratives" (German: V1-Deklarativsätze).Indeed, this term is generally used to refer to structures of the type in (i) (cf., among  two after the-DAT.PL carnival-day-DAT.PL 'Two men/women/etc.met after the carnival days. ..' (Reis 2000, p. 216) I do not believe that constructions like (i) can be considered "declarative" in the same way a sentence like "Wir gehen heute spazieren" ('We are going for a walk today') is, since this word-order option is bound to the verbalization of a narrative sequence or is limited to a specific text genre (typically a joke).This seems to imply that such structures are not subjected to the same conditions/restrictions as regular declaratives, which are statements associated with a truth value.In fact, the two patterns are not freely interchangeable, i.e., it is generally not possible to express an assertion by means of a V1 word order (*Habe ich heute ein Auto gekauft 'I bought a car today')."Narrative" declaratives such as (i) are, in principle, compatible with two syntactic patterns: V2 or V1.With respect to their derivation, it can be assumed that if the prefield is not occupied by a full constituent, this XP can be replaced by a null expletive which does the job of filling this position in order not to violate the V2 constraint.Note that this is not an ad hoc solution, given that this expletive can be spelled out in some cases, as in (ii), where the adverbial expletive da ('there') is not a canonically deictic element, but functions as a place holder.This example is taken from an online forum in which the users share jokes, but the sentence could also be the introduction of a narrative text: For space reasons, in the glosses to this example and in what follows, the simple abbreviation "PRS" for a verb form refers to the present tense of the indicative; "SBJ.PRS", instead, refers to the present tense of the subjunctive (Konjunktiv I in German).

6
The descriptive term "prefield" (Drach 1937;Höhle 1986) is used to refer to the portion of clause-internal syntactic structure preceding the finite verb in a main clause (in generative terms, Spec,CP) (also cf.Fn. 1).

7
In the present discussion, I assume a broad notion of "frame-setting" which goes beyond the spatio-temporal delimitation of an event or state described in the sentence.Krifka (2008) defines frames as constituents that lexicalize "a domain of (possible) reality to which the proposition expressed by Y is restricted, [i.e.] [. ..] an aspect under which a proposition is true, e.g., by [. ..] specifying the situation variable of a sentence" (Krifka 2008, p. 1).In this sense, an adverbial clause like the one in (7b) sets the conditions (the not raining weather) under which the content of the proposition in the main clause (the staying-at-home) will occur.8 These two phrases, indeed, can occur independently of each other, i.e., without the other one even surfacing in the same utterance (i)-(ii), or they can have a different topological distribution in the sentence, the one being fronted and the other remaining in the middle-field position in which it has arguably been base-generated (iii): (i) Am Sonnabendmorgen im frühesten Zug war er unausgeschlafen genug, . . .(ii) Im frühesten Zug war er unausgeschlafen genug, . . .(iii) Am Sonnabendmorgen war er im frühesten Zug unausgeschlafen genug, . . .9 In consideration of this, one may proceed to assume that the possibility of having an overt resumptive in DP and adverbial left dislocation follows from movement of the corresponding phrase through the relevant specifier, i.e., from the fact that this XP has not been base-generated in its surface position, but raised from a lower position.10 Note that the analysis proposed here for the sentences in ( 9) is compatible with the fact two sentences such as, say, (7a) above (Den Hans, den mag jeder) and (9a) (Den Hans mag jeder) are perfectly interchangeable in terms of meaning and general felicitousness conditions.What basically differentiates the use of assertions spelling out and not spelling out the resumptive is register: in the (normative) standard language, (DP and adverbial) left dislocation is excluded at all levels, while in colloquial interaction (as well as in contexts of the written language in which orality and colloquiality are imitated), both forms are possible.

11
For the technical details of such proposals, the reader is referred to the literature mentioned above.In a nutshell, the idea of a base-generated status of elements like hingegen in the very context illustrated in (7c) follows from arguments related to infelicitous "reconstruction" effects in the middle field, problems with the derivation and formal categorization of an XP of the type in seiner Heimat hingegen moving as a block from the VP area, as well as to the fact that such particle-like elements can also appear in combination with hanging topics, which are generally assumed to be base-generated in some projection above ForceP (i.e., clause-externally), as exemplified in (i): (i)  (Breitbarth 2022, p. 8) 14 The character of (7d) is per se more "spoken" than that of (7e) (although Breitbarth's (2022) corpus, from which (7d) and the example in the previous footnote are, mainly consists of radio interviews with political leader and policy makers).If one accepts the existence of the pattern "Adjunct > Argument > Vfin" in conceptually oral interaction (Koch and Oesterreicher 1985), one will easily admit that the utterance-initial occurrence of a frame-setting adjunct and the presence of a topic in second position that is potentially compatible with a left-dislocation reading do not exclude the possibility of having an overt resumptive in Spec,FinP, since the argumental DP is clearly the phrase that has been moved from its base-generation site in the VP.

15
The exact nature of these two projections is not relevant to the purposes of the present paper, whose focus is on the position of the finite verb in the CP domain.In a nutshell, however, the idea is that both ("YP" and "ZP") can potentially attract adjuncts, but that the higher one ("YP") is a projection hosting contrastively interpreted topics of all kinds (which means that KP in (10b) and YP in the following examples can coincide or that a DP topic can cyclically move to Spec,KP to acquire topic features and then to Spec,YP to acquire contrastive fetures), while the lower one ("ZP") only hosts non-contrastive adjuncts or parts of adjuncts.Indeed, in the pattern exemplified in (7e)/(12b), the adjunct, which clearly occur below YP (i.e., in ZP as a block), cannot receive a contrastive interpretation.

16
In fact, this does not seem to be limited to declarative clauses.Wh-interrogatives exhibiting a V2 word order, in which the wh-pronoun/adverb is clearly the constituent that is moved from its IP/VP base-generation site to the left periphery, also allow for sequences that are compatible with what has been proposed in this section.In particular, whP/FocP, which appears in a central position in the C-domain (cf.( 8)) and in whose specifier the interrogative phrase is hosted, can be linearly preceded (i) or followed (ii)-under specific conditions and given the appropriate context-by frame-setting constituents that may be assumed to be first-merged into the projections labeled "YP" and "ZP" in the examples above.Note that in the following examples, the clausal XPs do not perform a presupposing function, but function as genuine frame setters: In older stages of the language (notoriously in Old High German), the use of the subjunctive in embedded clauses was much more frequent than in the present-day language.For a recent functional and corpus-based formalization of this phenomenon in Old High German related to non-veridicality/non-specificity as a factor for the licensing of the subjunctive in Historical German, the reader is referred to the detailed analyses by Coniglio (2017) and Coniglio et al. (2018). 18 This is a crucial point here, since some verbs like say, believe and more complex expressions of the type be of the view, etc.-in German just like in English and in other languages-also have an assertive counterpart in the lexicon that allows for main-clause phenomena in the corresponding complement clause.Of course, in most cases this can only be contextually determined.Consider, for instance, the two following examples from English, which both have the verb believe as a selecting predicate.One may imagine that by means of (i), a belief report, no assertion is produced at the time of speaking.This is the context assumed in the examples above, which lacks an illocutive potential and is compatible with the subjunctive in German.Here, the meaning of believe can be roughly described as 'accept the truth of a proposition'.In (ii), instead, the believing is relevant to the expression of an assertive speech act that is realized de visu.The capitalized letters signal an expressively focused accentuation in two syllables of the adverbial never ever.In this case, believe means 'have the opinion that. ..'.The latter context, which is not considered here for German, can be expected-in contrast to the former context-to embed object clauses that allow for main-clause phenomena: (i) I believed he was 30.Then I found out that he was 50! (ii) I believe that she will NEver Ever forgive him!19 Cf. for instance the following example from Bavarian: 'that you and Maria have won the first prize' (Bayer 2013, p. 29) 20 As an anonymous reviewer observes, it should be pointed out that meaningless head movement comes at a certain cost, in theoretical terms, since it does not satisfy a minimalist desideratum.I fully agree with that.Indeed, the movement of the finite verb to Fin • escapes Last Resort (Chomsky 1995, p. 280) here, and there does not seem to be any legitimate reason to believe that leftward movement to C • may be triggered by feature checking in the configurations illustrated above.The driving mechanism at work in these structures appears to consist in avoiding the spell-out of an illocutionarily independent clause (not introduced by a Comp) with a verb-final word order.This operation, however, cannot easily be associated with a specific feature to be checked in the left periphery of the clause, as it exclusively pertains to the (visible) linear order of the clause.In this sense, the application of Cinque's (2018) notion of meaningless movement optimally lends itself to explaining the state of affairs at stake here.