Dialectal Variation in German 3 - Verb Clusters . Looking for the best analysis ∗

The type of cluster exemplified in (1) is the most flexible one, consisting of auxiliary, modal and predicative verb. A perception verb in place of modal yields has a by and large equivalent flexibility. Throughout the paper, I use the following abbreviations for the above patterns: ∗For fruitful discussion and insightful comments, I want to thank the audience of the UCLA/University of Potsdam Workshop on Head Movement, October 21/22, 2001, UCLA, Los Angeles, the audience at another presentation at the Graduiertenkolleg of the University of Stuttgart, November, 14, 2001, and the following colleagues and friends: Artemis Alexiadou, Daniel Büring, Gisbert Fanselow, Jane Grimshaw, Gunnar Hrafn Hrafnbjargarsson, Hilda Koopman, Jens Michaelis, Gereon Müller, Tanja Schmid, Dominique Sportiche, Arthur Stepanov, Ed Stabler, Tim Stowell, Carola Trips, Hubert Truckenbrodt, Sten Vikner, and the Potsdam Syntax colloquium. 1German dialects vary a lot in their morpho-phonology. As I am only concerned with word order facts in this paper, I am abstracting away from these differences, and only give the examples, with a few exceptions, in their Standard German “translation”.