This chapter takes as its point of departure the discussion in 9.2, which has shown that finite verbs can be found in basically two positions: the clause-final position in embedded clauses and the verb-first/second position in main clauses; the latter position is normally occupied by a complementizer in embedded clauses.

On the basis of these two positions, the clause can be divided into various "topological" fields: the clause-initial position, the middle field and the postverbal field; cf. representation (2).

This chapter discusses the postverbal field, that is, the clause-internal constituents that follow the verb(s) in clause-final position. The postverbal field differs in various ways from the clause-initial position. For example, while the clause-initial position can be filled by a single constituent only, the postverbal field can contain more than one constituent.

Example (3a) shows that the postverbal field may remain empty; the PPs either occupy a position in the middle field of the clause or a position in the postverbal field. It seems that the question as to whether a clausal constituent can occur in the postverbal field is related to its categorial status. This is illustrated in (4) for direct objects: while nominal direct objects must precede the verb(s) in clause-final position, clausal direct objects normally follow them. The examples in (3) have already shown that. e.g., PP-complements like op Marie dʼr kat can occur in both positions.

The question as to whether or not a clausal constituent may/must occur in the postverbal field is also related to its syntactic function, as is clear from the fact that adverbial clauses differ from object clauses in that they may also occur in the middle field of the clause.

The examples in (6) show that the postverbal field is also accessible to specific subparts of clausal constituents. This holds, for instance, for postnominal modifiers of noun phrases; the associate noun phrase may function as an argument of the main verb but also as a subpart of an argument of the main verb. The discontinuous noun phrases are given in italics.

The organization of this chapter is as follow. Section 12.1 starts with a discussion of some general properties of (elements occupying) the postverbal field. Section 12.2 discusses the restrictions on the placement of arguments and complementives in postverbal position; Section 12.3 does the same for adjuncts and Section 12.4 for subparts of clausal constituents. Section 12.5 concludes with a number of remarks on word order.