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Linearity
quickinfo

A sequence of main clauses in an ongoing discourse is sensitive to linear order: I went down the hall. I dressed. I had breakfast means something else than I had breakfast. I dressed. I went down the hall. Linear order is likewise relevant to the relation between a UCV2 and the main clause in which it is directly contained. More specifically, the UCV2 must occur at the end of the main clause.

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Syntactically embedded clauses may occur to the left or to the right of the sentence in which they are contained. The following example illustrates this for an object clause:

1
a. Dat se ek komme soenen hie er net sein
that they also come would had he not said
That they would also come, he had not said
b. Hy hie net sein dat se ek komme soenen
he had not said that they also come would
He had not said that they would also come

The following examples illustrate this for an adverbial clause of reason:

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a. It komt no wol wat nuver út omdat ik by ús heit-en-dy bin
it comes now DcP a.bit strange out because I at our dad-and-DEM am
It comes at a somewhat inconvenient time because I am staying with my parents
b. Omdat ik by ús heit-en-dy bin komt it no wol wat nuver út
because I at our dad-and-DEM am comes it now DcP a.bit strange out
Because I am staying with my parents, it comes at a rather inconvenient time

UCV2s, in contrast, must occur at the end of the main clause in which they are semantically embedded. The following example illustrates that a UCV2 in a bridge verb superordinate clause must occur in the final position of that clause:

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a. Hy hie sein dat hy wist it antwurd net
he had said that he knew the answer not
He had said that he did not know the answer
b. *Dat hy wist it antwurd net hie er sein
that he knew the answer not had he said
That he did not know the answer, he had said

The following examples illustrate that an adverbial clause of reason in the form of a UCV2 must occur in the final position of the main clause:

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a. Hy woe net thús bliuwe omdat it wie moai waar
he wanted not home stay because it was nice weather
He did not want to stay at home, because it was nice weather
b. *Omdat it wie moai waar woe er net thús bliuwe
because it was nice weather wanted he not home stay
Because the weather was nice, he did not want to stay at home

The ungrammatical example in (4) becomes grammatical in case the verb of the embedded clause occupies clause-final position, which is characteristic of syntactic embedding, as in the following example:

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Omdat it moai waar wie, woe er net thús bliuwe
because it nice weather was, wanted he not home stay
Because it was nice weather,he did not want to stay at home

Furthermore, it is not allowed either to prepose a UCV2 by preposing the constituent in which it is embedded. This is illustrated below for a direct object clause:

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a. Hy hie sein dat hy wist it antwurd net
he had said that he knew the answer not
He had said that he did not know the answer
b. *Sein dat hy wist it antwurd net, (dat) hie er!
said that he knew the answer not that had he
Said that he did not know the answer, he had!

Preposing is unproblematic in case the embedded clause is syntactically subordinated, as signalledd by Verb-Final:

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Sein dat hy it antwurd net wist, (dat) hie er!
said that he the answer not knew that had he
Said that he did not know the answer, he had!

The following examples illustrate this for an adverbial clause of reason:

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a. Hy woe wol mei de taksy brocht wurde omdat hy wie dronken
he wanted DcP with the cab brought be because he was drunk
He wanted to be driven there by there because he was drunk
b. *Mei de taksy brocht wurde omdat hy wie dronken (dat) woe er!
with the cab brought be because he was drunk that wanted he
To be driven there by there because he was drunk, that was what he wanted
c. Mei de taksy brocht wurde omdat hy dronken wie (dat) woe er!
with the cab brought be because he drunk was that wanted he
To be driven there by there because he was drunk, that was what he wanted

These examples make it clear that what matters is not the relation of precedence holding between the matrix predicate and the UCV2: the UCV2 must occur at the end of the superordinate clause containing it.

Furthermore, a UCV2 can only occur in a clause that is itself a V2 clause. This entails that the containing clause for a UCV2 must be a main clause, or it must itself be a UCV2. The latter case is illustrated by the following:

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Ik tocht, dat Teake sei niis dat hy hie it net witten
I thought that Teake said just that he had it not known
I thought that Teake just said that he had not known it

In the example above, the lowest clause is a UCV2 that is embedded in another clause that is a UCV2 which is itself in turn embedded in the matrix clause, which is also a UCV2. If the middle clause is changed to a non-V2 clause, the result is ungrammatical:

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*Ik tocht, dat Teake niis sei dat hy hie it net witten
I thought that Teake just said that he had it not known
I thought that Teake just said that he had not known it

To sum up, a UCV2 is only grammatical in case it is embedded in another clause that is also V2. Furthermore, embedded UCV2 clauses must follow the clause in which they are embedded. They cannot be moved around. In this respect, UCV2s will turn out to be different from NCV2s, that is, clauses with V2 but without a complementiser.

References
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