A typology of V2 with regard to V1 and second position phenomena: An introduction to the V1/V2 volume

Abstract This introduction presents the research project of the volume Verb-first, Verb-second and sketches its empirical domain and theoretical background, introducing the contributions to the volume through a survey of the main issues at stake. I present a typology of V2 languages, and discuss their parallels and divergences with V1 languages in a comparative and theoretical perspective. The definitional contrast between V1 and V2 is set up by an inventory of what can come first in V2 orders, from multiple XPs to heads, and V2 is discussed in the broader context of other second position phenomena. The syntactic properties associated in the literature with V2 are systematically confronted with crosslinguistic variation: verb-finality, particular underlying word orders, verb landing site, agreement morphology, VS adjacency, left periphery specific to V2, information structure constraints, and expletives. The reader is provided with robust typological generalisations and a clear terminology for a better understanding of the contributions in this volume and their context.

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