11 - Verb clusters

Summary

With the term verb cluster I refer to the string of verbs appearing to the right of the middle field in Dutch (i.e. in the right bracket of (4.1)). The properties of verb clusters are best inspected in embedded clauses, where the finite verb is also part of the cluster. Verb clusters are typical of Continental West Germanic languages, though subtle differences exist in the order of elements in the cluster, both within and across languages/dialects (see Zwart 1996a, Wurmbrand 2004).

The main theoretical question surrounding verb clusters in Continental West Germanic concerns the way clusters are created in the course of a syntactic derivation. This assumes that clusters are a surface phenomenon, derived from an underlying structure in which a verb takes a clausal complement. In this situation, the complement clause can either be extraposed ((11.5); see section 9.2.2), or the verb of the matrix clause and the verb of the complement clause are somehow joined, yielding a verb cluster. There are two sides to the process of cluster formation: first, the operation yielding a string of verbs, and second, the resultant transparency of the embedded clause, as evidenced by the position and interpretation of embedded clause material (‘restructuring’). A related, but separate, question concerns the order of the elements in the cluster, and the typology of verb clusters depending on the nature of the matrix verb.