ABSTRACT
Basic principle of German and Dutch word order that refers to a positional separation of the different parts of predication and/or of other elements of the sentence. The formation of the brace construction varies according to sentence and brace type. (a) The verbal brace construction is formed, among others, by (i) the separable parts of a morphologically complex verb: Sie lernte gestern den Sachverhalt endlich genauer kennen ‘Yesterday she finally got to know the matter better’; (ii) finite auxiliary or modal verb and infinite main verb or predicate part: Sie den Sachverhalt kennenlernen ‘She will/must get to know the matter’; (iii) finite predicate part and certain verb complements or other information that in basic word order ( word order) generally comes after the sentence negation (this itself is regarded as a brace-closing element in some of the pertinent literature): Sie bekam den Fall nicht unter Kontrolle; Sie fühlte sich nicht überarbeitet ‘She did not come to grips with the case’; ‘She did not
positional fields (termed Vorfeld, ‘prefield’ or ‘front field,’ Mittelfeld ‘inner field’ and Nachfeld ‘final field,’ ‘post-field,’ or ‘end field’); the first stretches from the beginning of the sentence to the finite verb, the second from the finite verb to the closing element of the brace; the third only exists in sentences with exbraciation, i.e. if some part of the sentence is placed after the brace-closing element: Er schickte mich ins Haus hinein zu seinem Vater ‘He sent me into the house to his father.’ (Verb-initial sentences lack a prefield.) (b) The brace construction in a verb-final (usually subordinate) clause is formed by the clause-initiating elements (conjunctions etc.) and the verbal parts:…, weil er durstig war ‘…because he was thirsty.’ (c) The nominal brace construction is created by the distance position of article or preposition and head noun: ein nicht mehr zu überbietendes groβartiges Ereignis ‘a wonderful event which cannot be surpassed.’
