In the right mood, in the right place

Abstract

While mood alternations in older Germanic languages are indicators of the (in)dependent status of the clause, verb placement is often considered as the reflex of information structure. In modern Germanic languages, the situation has changed: verb placement (and not mood alternation) reflects the different clausal status. This paper reports on a first attempt at an empirical investigation of the different stages of Old English and Old High German in this diachronic process.