Christopher D. Sapp

         In German subordinate clauses, verbs are clustered at the end of the clause in a fixed order. With two verbs, the finite verb immediately follows its dependent non-finite verb (1). The syntax of Swiss German, however, is more varied: in the Zurich dialect, a finite modal may immediately follow the infinitive (2a), immediately precede it (2b), or be separated from it by a constituent (2c). Schmid & Vogel (2004) claim that in many dialects, sentence stress influences word order within the verbal complex. To test whether information structure, rather than stress, affects these word orders, I conducted a questionnaire-based study of the verbal complex in Zurich German.
(1) Ich habe gesagt, dass Martin einen Roman schreiben muss. Stand. German
I have said that Martin a novel writeinf mustfin
(2) a. I ha gsäit, dass dä Martin en Roman schriibe mues. Zurich German
I have said that the Martin a novel writeinf mustfin
b. I ha gsäit, dass dä Martin en Roman mues schriibe.
I have said that the Martin a novel mustfin writeinf
c. I ha gsäit, dass dä Martin mues en Roman schriibe.
I have said that the Martin mustfin a novel writeinf
To elicit different focus interpretations, the questionnaire presented these word orders as answers to a question. For example, the background question “What? Martin must read a novel?” prompts participants to read the answers in (2) with focus on the verb (i.e. as “No, I said that Martin must WRITE a novel”). The questionnaire had 15 such questions, each with three answers differing only in word order, with all items in Zurich German. Twenty-three participants completed the questionnaire.
           This study yields a number of interesting results. First, contra Lötscher (1978), Zurich speakers do not prefer the order in (2b) but instead favor the orders (2a) and (2c). Secondly, information structure affects the choice between those two orders: (2a) is preferred when the whole clause is focused, (2c) is best when a verb is focused, and the two are about equal with object focus. This finding has potential implications for all Germanic dialects with word-order variation in the verbal complex, a subject of great recent interest (see e.g. Kiss & van Riemsdijk 2004). Finally, although some participants were distracted by issues such as orthography, the format of the questionnaire proved to be a successful method for investigating the effect of information structure on word order in a dialect.

References

           Lötscher, Andreas. 1978. Zur Verbstellung im Zürichdeutschen und in anderen Varianten des Deutschen. Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik, 45: 1-29.
           Schmid, Tanja & Ralf Vogel. 2004. Dialectal Variation in German 3-Verb Clusters: A Surface-Oriented Optimality Theoretic Account. Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics 7: 235-274.
           Kiss, Katalin É. and Henk van Riemsdijk, eds. 2004. Verb clusters: A study of Hungarian, German, and Dutch. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.