oa Afhankelijke V1-zinnen

Dependent V1 clauses: Conditional, contrastive, concessive - functional-typological and constructional perspectives

Responding to the preceding article by Beekhuizen, the present contribution comments from a functional-typological and constructional perspective on Beekhuizen’s opinion that the V1-order is not a “strong” linguistic sign in Dutch. Beekhuizen’s categorization of the different types of subordinate V1-clauses is questioned on semantic and pragmatic grounds, and the position is defended that V1-order in subordinate clauses can be regarded as signalling conditionality, provided one accepts that contrastive and concessive types of V1-clauses arose from existing V1-conditionals by ‘secondary’ processes of grammaticalization. Using supplementary observations from German (and occasionally also English), the article ends by sketching the constructional profile of subordinate V1-clauses in Dutch and suggesting that no constructional approach to V1-clauses can ultimately be complete without due consideration of declarative as well as subordinate V1-clauses.