Chapter On V2, gaps, and operators in comment and reporting parentheticals

Abstract

Parenthetical comment and reporting clauses exhibit various interesting properties, which are shown to be related. Three different word order pat-terns are attested in Dutch and German: apparent V1, V2 and V-final; the internal argument of the parenthetical verb is usually missing; there is an optional so/zo element; the construction is island-sensitive. These patterns are explained by means of an operator that is A ́-moved inside the parenthetical, and which can optionally be lexicalized in the first position. The V-final pattern arises when a complementizer is present, which is the case in propositional as-parentheticals.