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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Ian MacKenzieORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
This paper uses Old Spanish as a case study to argue that verb-second (V2) syntax is not monolithic but instead involves a split between external merge (EM) and internal merge (IM) into the C-system. Building on Holmberg’s (2020) findings on Swedish, it demonstrates that the enclitic and proclitic patterns in Old Spanish finite main clauses serve as diagnostics for whether a V2 constituent reaches the preverbal field via EM or IM, reflecting a broader distinction between formal V2 and scope/discourse-related V2. The high frequency of enclisis in Old Spanish suggests a predominance of EM-driven V2, in contrast to Holmberg’s assessment of Swedish, where EM-driven V2 is claimed to be more restricted. The paper proposes a mixed model of V2 syntax, integrating EPP-driven merge into Spec-FinP (Haegeman 1996) with interpretively motivated Criterial movement (Rizzi 2006, Samo 2019). Residual V2 reflects the resilience of the interpretive component, with its assumed Spec-head configuration (Poletto 2000) reinterpreting verb movement to Fin0 as movement to the Criterial head. The model provides a new perspective on the interplay between formal and interpretive aspects of V2 syntax, with implications reaching beyond Old Spanish.
Author(s): Mackenzie I
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Linguistics
Year: 2025
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 30/10/2025
Acceptance date: 06/09/2025
Date deposited: 07/09/2025
ISSN (print): 0022-2267
ISSN (electronic): 1469-7742
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226725100959
DOI: 10.1017/S0022226725100959
Notes: This article is due to be published in print in 2027 (volume 63)
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