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Lookup NU author(s): Emeritus Professor Anders Holmberg
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Estonian declarative main clauses display a relatively strict verb-second (V2) order, resembling Germanic V2. However, two prosody-conditioned exceptions distinguish Estonian from Germanic: verb-third occurs with weak proforms in the ‘EPP-position’ and with nuclear-stressed finite verbs. We claim that the derivation of Estonian V2 differs from Germanic. The Estonian left periphery resembles Finnish, a closely related but non-V2 language. In both languages, finite verbs move to the highest T-domain head and a phrasal category moves to the specifier of this head, the EPP-position. Estonian V2 with its exceptions results from “Weak Start,” a prosodic constraint blocking spell-out of the highest copy of the chain derived by movement to the EPP-position when another phrasal constituent occupies the C-domain.
Author(s): Holmberg A, Sahkai H, Tamm A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Uralic Linguistics
Year: 2025
Volume: 4
Issue: 2
Pages: 217-268
Print publication date: 10/09/2025
Online publication date: 24/10/2025
Acceptance date: 16/06/2025
Date deposited: 04/11/2025
ISSN (print): 2772-3720
ISSN (electronic): 2772-3739
Publisher: John Benjamins
URL: https://doi.org/10.1075/jul.00042.hol
DOI: 10.105/jul.00042.hol
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