On the classification of Mòcheno and Cimbrian within the typology of V2 languages: relaxed or residual V2 languages?

The aim of this paper is to investigate the distribution of subject-finite verb inversion across three types of V2 languages: strict V2 languages, relaxed V2 languages and residual V2 languages, and to document a further, so far unnoticed, pattern exhibited by Mòcheno and Cimbrian. In these languages, subject-finite verb inversion is fed by clause type (as in “residual” V2 languages), but it is ruled out in interrogative clauses and possible in main declarative clauses (unlike in “residual” V2 languages) with no restrictions on subject type. I will provide evidence that this distribution of subject-finite verb inversion in Mòcheno and Cimbrian, far from being the manifestation of a novel type of “residual V2” system, represents a type of “relaxed” V2 system fed by the specificities in the syntax of the nominal subject in the two languages.