Cross-Dialectal Variation in Swiss German: Doubling Verbs, Verb-Projection Raising, Barrierhood, and LF Movement

Abstract

Recent work on Verb-Projection Raising (VPR) in Dutch and Swiss German dialects has shown that this phenomenon can be best accounted for in terms of Scrambling and Adjunction (S&A). While this mechanism seems to be adequate for the core cases of VPR, it is too powerful for a certain subclass of VPR-constructions, namely the so-called Doubling Verbs (DV): ga ‘go’, cho ‘come’ and aafe ‘to begin’. Free application of the S&A mechanism leads to overgeneration in DV-constructions, as DVs are more sensitive to LF-phenomena than modals and auxiliaries. Even within the DVs a distinction must be drawn between the more liberal DVs cho and aafe on one hand and ga on the other. Only the former allow negative existentials, anaphors and wh-in-situ in the raised cluster. This contrast in behaviour is linked to the different semantic make-up of DVs, which ultimately reduces to entailment and secondary Theta-role assignment.

At S-Structure all DV-constructions are transparent, and any constituent can scramble out of the embedded VP prior to raising. Although the non-finite DV could erect a minimality barrier in the sense of Baker (1988), non-distinctness of the dummy (finite DV) in I and the particle (non-finite DV) eliminates barrierhood at S-Structure. Due to feature-enrichment at LF in the case of ga, the dummy and the particle become distinct and the Doubling-Verb Phrase (DVP) turns into a barrier again, blocking QR of scope-bearing elements contained in the raised cluster. In the case of cho and aafe, no such feature-enrichment takes place; thus cho- and aafe-constructions remain transparent at LF and do not block QR of scope-bearing elements contained in the raised cluster. However, universal quantifiers are allowed to occur even in the raised cluster of ga. Since in this case the universal quantifier has to undergo QR at LF as well, and movement is possible despite the presence of a barrier at LF, it is concluded on the basis of syntactic evidence in Bernese (BE), that universal quantifiers can move into adjunction-positions and thus void the DVP barrier by adjoining to it. This escape-hatch is unavailable for negative existentials, anaphors and wh-in-situ, which use substitution-slots for movement. A final glance at St. Galler German (SG), which has real doubling with go, but cross-doubling with cho, suggests that the particle go suffices to ensure transparency at S-Structure and barrierhood at LF.