V2 Word Order - Examples

Examples

The following examples from German illustrate the V2 principle:

a.	Die Kinder	spielen	Fussball	vor der Schule	im Park.
	the kids	play	soccer	before school	in the park
.
b.	Fussball	spielen	die Kinder	vor der Schule	im Park.	'Soccer the kids play before school in the park.'
c.	Vor der Schule	spielen	die Kinder	Fussball	im Park.	'Before school, the kids play soccer in the park.'
d.	Im Park	spielen	die Kinder	Fussball	vor der Schule.	'In the park, the kids play soccer before school.'
.
e.	*Vor der Schule	Fussball	spielen	die Kinder	im Park.	'Before school soccer, the kids play in the park.'
f.	*Fussball	die Kinder	spielen	vor der Schule	im Park.	'Soccer the kids play before school in the park.'

(The star * is the standard means employed in linguistics to indicate that the example is grammatically unacceptable.) The sentences a-d, which are all perfectly acceptable, have the finite verb spielen in second position, whereby the major constituent that appears in the first position varies. Note that in the English translations on the right, the subject the kids remains in the position immediately before the finite verb play. The e and f sentences are bad because the finite verb no longer appears in second position there, but rather it has been pushed to the third position. The V2 principle allows any major constituent to occupy the first position as long as the second position is occupied by the finite verb.

The following examples from Dutch illustrate the V2 principle further:

a.	Ik	las	dit boek	gisteren.
	I	read	this book	yesterday
.
b.	Dit boek	las	ik	gisteren	'This book I read yesterday.'
c.	Gisteren	las	ik	dit boek.	'Yesterday I read this book.'
.
d.	*Dit boek	ik	las	gisteren.	'This book I read yesterday.'
e.	*Gisteren	ik	las	dit boek.	'Yesterday I read this book.'

We again see in sentence a-c that the as long as the finite verb (here las) is in second position, the major constituent in first position can vary. When two (or more) major constituents appear before the finite verb as in sentences d and e, the V2 principle is violated and the sentence is bad. Data similar to these examples from German and Dutch could easily be produced for the other Germanic languages.