It is a long-standing insight in Dutch syntax (and in the syntax of the Germanic OV-languages in general) that the clause can be divided into different topological fields, which can be defined by appealing to the positions that can be occupied by verbs: the verb-second position, which is occupied by finite verbs in main clauses, and the so-called clause-final verb position, in which the remaining, non-finite verbs find a place. In the examples in (1) these verb positions are italicized. Note that we will follow the general practice of abbreviating the terms “verb-second” and “clause-final verb” position as “second” and “clause-final” position; this is not problematic as long as one does not take the term “clause-final” too literally, because the verbs occupying this position can be followed by other material, especially PPs and clauses.

Since Paardekooper (1961) it has been generally assumed that the verb-second position in examples such as (1) is identical to the position occupied by the complementizers datthat and ofif in their embedded counterparts in (2); in such examples the finite verb forms a °verb cluster with the non-finite verbs in clause-final position. Note that the complementizer of in wh-questions such as (2b) is optional in colloquial speech and usually not overtly realized in writing/formal speech.

With the help of the two verb positions introduced above, we can define three topological fields, as indicated in (3). The clause-initial position can contain at most one constituent, which usually has a specific information-structural function: it can be a question word, a discourse topic, a contrastively focused element, etc. The middle field can contain constituents of various types, such as nominal and prepositional arguments, complementives, and adverbial phrases. The same is true for the postverbal field, which usually contains longer constituents (especially in the form of a PP or a clause), such as complement clauses, relative clauses, and adverbial phrases/clauses.

The distinction between the three topological fields is very useful for discussing word order, but Section 9.1 will show that it is not entirely unproblematic. This is especially true for the notion of middle field, because it does not seem to have an independent theoretical status, since it does not refer to a head position or a clausal constituent. This becomes especially clear when we consider the more articulate structural representation of the clause in (4), which is usually assumed in generative grammar; this representation shows that the (linear notion of) middle field crosses several (hierarchical) domain boundaries assumed in generative grammar: the string of words indicated by the accolade does not satisfy any of the constituency tests usually adopted in syntactic research.

This chapter also aims to provide a bird’s-eye view of the overall organization of the clause by briefly introducing a number of movement phenomena that affect the linear order of the clause: verb-second (Section 9.2), wh-movement in questions and topicalization constructions (Section 9.3), extraposition (Section 9.4), and scrambling (Section 9.5). These phenomena will be discussed in much greater detail in Chapter 10 through Chapter 13; since the present introductory chapter is intended to provide a broad overview and is mildly theoretical in nature, readers who are primarily interested in browsing through the relevant data may choose to go directly to those chapters.