Verb second in weil-clauses: Embedded V2 and the syntax-semantics-pragmatics interface

follows: The finite verb appears in the sentence final position in subordinate clauses and in the second position in main clauses. Yet, in spoken German V2-clauses can replace the standard V-final clauses in certain well-defined contexts: (1) a. Daniel kommt zu spät, weil er den Bus verpasst hat. Daniel comes too late, because he the bus missed has. b. Daniel kommt zu spät, weil er hat den Bus verpasst. Daniel comes too late, because he has the bus missed. The V2 realisations of weil-clauses are subject to numerous syntactic restrictions: verb raising is blocked if the weil-clause is clause initial; furthermore, V2 is impossible if the weil-clause is in the scope of negation or in case of variable-binding by a quantifier. Along with Uhmann (1998), I interpret these observations as providing sufficient evidence to treat V2 weil-clauses paratactically. Following Gärtner’s (2001) analysis of V2 relative clauses, I propose a paratactic phrase πP whose head π0 is occupied by the conjunction weil: π