Abstract

The V1-order in declarative clauses is well attested in Old High German. However, during the Middle High German period, V1 declarative clauses decrease or disappear completely from the language. Traditionally, they are assumed to suddenly reappear during Early New High German and then continue up to the present day. Nevertheless, rare cases of V1-clauses are attested in Middle High German manuscripts. In this paper, it will be argued that, even if the V1-pattern drastically decreases during the late Old High German period, it has been available throughout the history of the language. In particular, it will be argued that the syntactic and pragmatic properties of the V1-pattern have not varied during the centuries. Furthermore, the paper deals with possible syntactic explanations for the decrease of this pattern during the Middle High German period.