Two-Verb Clusters in Mennonite Low German: The Impact of Auxiliary Verb and Clause Type

Although verb clusters in Continental West Germanic varieties are a well-researched topic, their derivation and the possible functions of their variants are still not yet fully understood. Both issues are discussed in the present paper, which is based on the translations of 46 English, Spanish, or Portuguese stimulus sentences by 321 North and South American speakers of Mennonite Low German. In order to analyze the variation in clause-final two-verb clusters, we focus on three structural factors, namely (i) the auxiliary verb, (ii) the structural link between the auxiliary verb and the main verb, and (iii) the type of the subordinate clause in which the cluster occurs. Regarding the first and the second factor, we will employ the cartographic approach in order to explain the impact of different auxiliary verbs. Regarding the third factor, it is somewhat surprising that the potential effect of the subordinate clause on the distribution of different cluster variants has received little attention in the research literature. Clause type will be shown to have such an effect and, therefore, we will assume that the speakers of MLG use different variants deliberately to indicate different degrees of clausal integration.