2.1. V2 word order in Danish

Across the world’s languages, V2 is rare, but all Germanic languages (apart from modern English) have V2 word order. In V2 languages, ‘the finite verb is obligatorily the second constituent, either specifically in main clauses or in all finite clauses’ (Holmberg, Reference Holmberg, Kiss and Alexiadou2015, p. 342). The Danish sentences below have different constituents in the first position. The subject of the main clause is in bold, and the finite verb in bold and underlined. The function of the constituent in the first position is in parentheses. All except (3) are grammatical and have the verb in the second position. In (1), the order is subject-before-verb as in English, but in (2) and (4)–(6), the first position is occupied by a non-subject constituent. Since the verb must appear in the second position, the subject occurs after the verb.

Sentence (3) has ungrammatical V3 word order, because two constituents (both the adverbial and the subject) precede the verb. V3 word order is common in L2 production (L2 Norwegian: Brautaset, Reference Brautaset1996; Hagen, Reference Hagen1992; Johansen, Reference Johansen2008. L2 Swedish: Bolander, Reference Bolander, Hyltenstam and Obler1989; Hammarberg & Viberg, Reference Hammarberg and Viberg1977; Håkansson, Reference Håkansson, Hyltenstam and Lindberg2004. L2 Danish: Holmen, Reference Holmen, Hyltenstam and Viberg1994; Lund, Reference Lund1997; Søby & Kristensen, Reference Søby and Kristensen2019. L2 German: Bohnacker, Reference Bohnacker2006; Håkansson et al., Reference Håkansson, Pienemann and Sayehli2002; Sayehli, Reference Sayehli2013). Among second language researchers, there are different explanations why V2 should be hard to acquire. The influential Processability Theory by Pienemann (Reference Pienemann1998) is based on generative grammar and argues that XVS word order involves a complicated movement, demanding high cognitive capacity: SVX and ungrammatical *Adv-SVX (that is V3) have a more basic word order which is easier to process and thus easier to produce than XVS (V2). In Pienemann’s hierarchy of acquisition, V2 is acquired late – if ever. This theory is not compatible with a functional-cognitive theoretical basis as ours (Engberg-Pedersen et al., Reference Engberg-Pedersen, Fortescue, Harder, Heltoft and Jakobsen1996; Harder, Reference Harder2006). From a functional-cognitive perspective, constituents are not moved from an original position in deep structure. Instead, the nonsubject is seen as occurring in an initial position for functional reasons, not as having been moved there from an underlying basic position. For instance, nonsubjects may occur in the first position with the function of expressing linkage to previously mentioned referents (Kristensen, Reference Kristensen2013) as in (5) and (6). A functionalist alternative to Pienemann (Reference Pienemann1998) is the explanation by Lund (Reference Lund1997, p. 162), who argues that there is little communicative pressure to acquire V2 word order for declarative sentences compared to interrogative sentences, as V2 word order in declarative clauses does not have ‘any semantic or pragmatic function’. In Danish interrogative sentences, such as (7) and (8), there is more communicative pressure, as the use of verb-before-subject indicates that the mood of the sentence is interrogative.

Some previous studies of CLI from one V2 language to another suggest that crosslinguistic influence from the L1 may reduce the difficulties (Lund, Reference Lund1997, on L2 Danish; Johansen, Reference Johansen2008, on L2 Norwegian), but these studies do not use inferential statistics, and Johansen (Reference Johansen2008) only includes learners on an intermediate proficiency level. Other V2 to V2 studies do not find clear evidence of initial L1 transfer (e.g. Dahl et al., Reference Dahl, Listhaug, Busterud, Leal, Isabelli and Shimanskaya2022; Håkansson et al., Reference Håkansson, Pienemann and Sayehli2002; Sayehli, Reference Sayehli2013, on L2 German), maybe because transfer also occurred from other L2s. For instance, influence from other non-V2 L2s may increase the difficulties (e.g. Bohnacker, Reference Bohnacker2006, on L2 German). Studies of L2 Swedish and Norwegian indicate that the production of correct V2 word order is not equally challenging in all sentential contexts (Swedish: Bolander, Reference Bolander, Hyltenstam and Obler1989. Norwegian: Brautaset, Reference Brautaset1996; Hagen, Reference Hagen1992; Johansen, Reference Johansen2008). These studies call for further investigations of how the complexity of the clause may affect V2 production. A better understanding of which sentential contexts are challenging to learners can help L2 teachers of V2 languages focus their teaching.

Language teachers of L2 Danish, L2 Swedish and L2 Norwegian are faced with similar challenges, as the three languages are mutually intelligible (perhaps with ‘some initial difficulty’ (Vikør, Reference Vikør2015)), and all have similar use of V2 word order, but with some variation in grammaticality of V3. In Swedish, for instance, a few focalizing adverbials can be placed between the subject and verb: Hun [S] bare [A] ville [V] låna min cykel ‘She just wanted to borrow my bike’ (Bohnacker, Reference Bohnacker2006, p. 455), and some Norwegian dialects, most notably in northern Norway, allow V3 word order in wh-question structures (Westergaard et al., Reference Westergaard, Vangsnes and Lohndal2017). Such use of V3 is ungrammatical in Danish, and the acquisition of V2 word order in L2 Danish may therefore be slightly different.

Although sentences with V3 are comprehensible despite the ungrammatical word order, the use of correct V2 word order does seem important to ensure smooth communication with L1 users. An error detection study by Søby et al. (Reference Søby, Ishkhanyan and Kristensen2023a) found that L1 users notice incorrect V3 word order more frequently than other types of grammar anomalies, such as confusion of verb inflections and missing gender agreement in NPs. V3 word order also disrupts L1 users’ online processing, as found for Swedish by means of EEG (Andersson et al., Reference Andersson, Sayehli and Gullberg2019; Sayehli et al., Reference Sayehli, Gullberg, Newman and Andersson2022; Yeaton, Reference Yeaton2019) and for Norwegian by means of eye-tracking (Søby et al., Reference Søby, Milburn, Kristensen, Vulchanov and Vulchanova2023b).

2.2. Crosslinguistic influence and proficiency level

Crosslinguistic influence (CLI) is here used interchangeably with transfer, referring to ‘the ways in which a person’s knowledge of one language can affect his or her learning, knowledge and use of another language’ (Jarvis, Reference Jarvis, Golden, Jarvis and Tenfjord2017, p. 2). As mentioned in the introduction, it is well established that grammatical CLI occurs in L2 acquisition, and research on CLI has generally shifted towards discussing the role of previously learned languages beyond the L1 (that is L3 acquisition) (e.g. Bardel & Falk, Reference Bardel and Falk2007).

Since previous studies on V2 to V2 transfer have found mixed results concerning L1 transfer, we find it relevant to examine the transfer of word order in this specific context. Furthermore, we wish to examine how large the effects of CLI are for V2 production compared to other contributing factors such as proficiency level and constituent length. Johansen (Reference Johansen2008) examined sentences with non-initial subjects in a standardized test for 100 learners of Norwegian (The Language Test for Adult Immigrants) from the ASK test corpus (ASK, 2015), roughly corresponding to the B1 CEFR level (Tenfjord et al., Reference Tenfjord, Jarvis, Golden, Golden, Jarvis and Tenfjord2017, p. 3; Council of Europe, 2001). The learners generally had a high rate of V2 in the sentences, 86.5%, but the 20 L1 users of Dutch and German had even higher success rates, 98.4% and 100%. The other eight language groups ranged from 69.4% to 93.6%. In the only previous study on L2 Danish, Lund’s (Reference Lund1997) longitudinal study of six learners (2 with L1 Dutch, 2 with English, 1 Spanish and 1 Portuguese), only the two Dutch speakers, whose L1 is a V2 language, achieved ‘some stability’ in producing V2 in declarative clauses during their first 5.5 months with Danish classes (Lund, Reference Lund1997, p. 158). These findings support the idea that having V2 in one’s L1 makes it easier to produce V2 in an L2 – and potentially already in the early stages of learning. Contrarily, Håkansson et al. (Reference Håkansson, Pienemann and Sayehli2002) found that Swedish pupils produced V3 in L2 German, although both are V2 languages. Bohnacker (Reference Bohnacker2006) argued that the use of V3 by the pupils in Håkansson et al. (Reference Håkansson, Pienemann and Sayehli2002) could be due to syntactic transfer from English (which all pupils learn as an L2 prior to learning German). In order to control for influence from English, Bohnacker (Reference Bohnacker2006) compared oral production data from six adult Swedish learners of German; three monolinguals learners, and three with prior knowledge of English. The learners with no knowledge of English did not produce V3 in their German, but those with L2 English did, suggesting that learners can transfer the property of V2 from their L1, in contrast to Håkansson et al. (Reference Håkansson, Pienemann and Sayehli2002), but that ‘L2 knowledge of a non-V2 language (English) may obscure this V2 transfer’ (Bohnacker, Reference Bohnacker2006, p. 444). Using a different method, acceptability judgements, Dahl et al. (Reference Dahl, Listhaug, Busterud, Leal, Isabelli and Shimanskaya2022) examined transfer from L1 Norwegian and L2 English in the acquisition of verb placement, including XVS word order, in L3 German. Their results, however, ‘did not show evidence which would indicate that wholesale transfer had taken place from either L1 or L2 at the earliest stages of L3 acquisition’ (Dahl et al., Reference Dahl, Listhaug, Busterud, Leal, Isabelli and Shimanskaya2022, p. 211). Sayehli (Reference Sayehli2013) examined L1 transfer of verb placement from Swedish to L3 German (L2 English) among 61 pupils (12–16 years, across 4 school years), using a repetition task and an oral elicitation task. She found no evidence of L1 transfer of XVS in any task (Sayehli, Reference Sayehli2013, p. 86).

Studies of V2 to non-V2 languages have found indications of transfer of verb-second syntax (XVS) in the opposite direction, that is in L2 English from either L1 German and Dutch (Rankin, Reference Rankin2012), and from L1 Norwegian (Westergaard, Reference Westergaard, Foster-Cohen and Pekarek-Doehler2003). Finally, Stadt et al. (Reference Stadt, Hulk, Sleeman, Bardel and Sánchez2020) found transfer of V2 from L1 Dutch to L2 French.

Since most learners in Scandinavia learn a V2 language after having acquired a non-V2 language (English), it is relevant to examine the role of L1 transfer in this specific language-learning context. Learners whose L1 has V2 order (e.g. Dutch or German) will almost certainly have some proficiency in English. So how does the interplay between CLI from the L1 and the L2s affect word order acquisition (XVS word order) in a new V2 language? This is not clear from previous studies, especially for early stages of language acquisition in V2 to V2.

Even though CLI can occur on all language levels from phonology to discourse, the odds of encountering CLI in learner data are greatest when ‘the target language is related to a language the learners have already mastered’ (including the L1) and when ‘the feature is frequent in the learners’ L1’ (Jarvis, Reference Jarvis, Golden, Jarvis and Tenfjord2017, p. 14). Both of these factors apply to learners of L2 Danish with a Germanic V2 language as their L1, as Danish is typologically close to the Germanic V2 languages, and as clauses with non-initial subjects are common in e.g. Danish, Swedish and German (Bohnacker & Rosén, Reference Bohnacker and Rosén2008; Fabricius-Hansen & Solfjeld, Reference Fabricius-Hansen and Solfjeld1994; Kristensen, Reference Kristensen2013; Westman, Reference Westman1974).

To our knowledge, there are no quantitative V2 to V2 studies comparing the role of CLI from different L1s on V2 production on different proficiency levels. There are a few studies (Bolander, Reference Bolander, Halliday, Gibbons and Nicholas1990; Brautaset, Reference Brautaset1996) that report a progression in V2 production with increasing proficiency, but they do not differentiate between users with V2 and non-V2 background. In Johansen (Reference Johansen2008), all the 100 learner texts were at B1 level. The interplay between the learner’s proficiency level and language background is therefore unaccounted for.

2.3. The role of sentence complexity

Sentence-internal factors may also influence the production of V2 in learner language. Previous studies have investigated the role of the sentential context for L2 Swedish (Bolander, Reference Bolander, Hyltenstam and Obler1989, Reference Bolander, Halliday, Gibbons and Nicholas1990; Hyltenstam, Reference Hyltenstam1978) and L2 Norwegian (Brautaset, Reference Brautaset1996; Hagen, Reference Hagen1992; Johansen, Reference Johansen2008), but not for L2 Danish. Comparing the results of these studies is difficult. Some studies use categories where materials (e.g. subordinate clause) and syntactic functions (e.g. object) are intertwined (Bolander, Reference Bolander, Hyltenstam and Obler1989, Reference Bolander, Halliday, Gibbons and Nicholas1990; Brautaset Reference Brautaset1996). Other studies are mainly qualitative (Hagen, Reference Hagen1992; Johansen, Reference Johansen2008), and it seems that only Hyltenstam (Reference Hyltenstam1978) has used inferential statistics to test effects of a few complexity factors.

Besides those of Bolander, the studies are based on written production, both essays and elicited material (see Table 1). The largest studies are those of Hyltenstam (160 learners), Bolander (60 learners) and Hagen (38 learners). Johansen’s (Reference Johansen2008) qualitative analysis only includes 19 learners. The learners in the studies are on different proficiency levels, with some studies comparing the same learners at different stages (Brautaset, Reference Brautaset1996; Hagen, Reference Hagen1992; Hyltenstam, Reference Hyltenstam1978). As shown in Table 1, most studies do not include learners with V2 background (Bolander, Reference Bolander, Halliday, Gibbons and Nicholas1990; Brautaset, Reference Brautaset1996; Johansen, Reference Johansen2008), or they do not report the L1s (Hagen, Reference Hagen1992). As these previous studies have not attempted to study the separate contributions of sentence-external factors, such as the learner’s language background versus the sentence-internal factors, such as sentence complexity, it is still an open question if the role of sentence complexity applies equally to all learners.

Table 1.

Overview of previous studies of constituents in sentences with V2 versus V3

Most studies have focused on the role of the constituents in the first three sentence slots when examining whether there are favorable and unfavorable contexts for producing XVS word order. They include a mixture of structural (syntactic functions, material, complexity of the material, frequency) and semantic descriptions.

As shown in Table 1, the studies differ with respect to the principles for categorization of sentential constituents, with respect to modality (written versus oral language) and task type. Their conclusions also differ, probably due to methodological differences and the different approaches to categorization. It is, for instance, not clear if nominal versus pronominal subjects affect the share of V3. Hagen (Reference Hagen1992) proposes a general hypothesis: sentences with V3 generally include features which burden the language user’s capacity to process information to a higher degree than the sentences with V2 (Hagen, Reference Hagen1992, p. 34). In the following, we summarize some key findings regarding the first constituent, the subject and the verb.

2.4. The current study

In the current cross-sectional study, we examine the production of V2 versus V3 in texts written by students on three different test levels enrolled in an official Danish language program. Sentences with initial subjects are not a specific challenge to learners of V2 languages, and the study therefore only covers sentences with non-initial subjects. Using a statistical model, we test whether there are effects on V2 production of (1) learners’ test level, (2) learners’ L1 and (3) the length of the first constituent, the verb and the subject.

• – Hypothesis 1. We expect to find a progression with increasing test level, reflected in a higher share of V2. This hypothesis is based on findings from Brautaset (Reference Brautaset1996) and Bolander (Reference Bolander, Halliday, Gibbons and Nicholas1990) who report a progression in V2 production with increasing proficiency.

• – Hypothesis 2. We expect that learners with another V2 language as their L1 (V2 learners) have a higher share of V2 than learners with an L1, not featuring V2 (non-V2 learners). This hypothesis is based on the study by Johansen (Reference Johansen2008), who found higher shares of V2 for V2 learners than for non-V2 learners.

• – Hypothesis 3. We expect that increasing complexity (operationalized as length) of the three first constituents will affect the share of V2 production negatively.

  • – 3.1. We expect that the length (number of words) of the first constituent negatively affects V2 production. From previous studies, it is unclear whether heavy constituents in general affect V2 production, but Bolander (Reference Bolander, Halliday, Gibbons and Nicholas1990) found lower shares of V2 after subordinate clauses.

  • – 3.2. We expect that the length of the subject, operationalized as one word versus multiple words, negatively affects V2 production. Previous studies have compared pronominal versus nominal subjects with contradictory results. This comparison is to some extent intertwined with our comparison between one versus multiple words.

  • – 3.3. We expect that the length of the verb, operationalized as single versus complex (multiple words), negatively affects V2 production (based on findings from Brautaset (Reference Brautaset1996)).

4.1. Markup principles and exclusion criteria

All declarative clauses with non-initial subjects (XVS/*XSV) and all interrogative sentences ((X)VS) were marked. Due to the creative and sometimes surprising nature of learner language, we based the markup on two principles. Firstly, we ignored morphological and orthographical anomalies, as well as anomalous word choice, and focused on the order of what we interpreted as a plausible verb and a plausible subject. For instance, examples (9–10) are both considered as correct V2 word order – in spite of the anomalous morphological form of the constituents. In (9), two non-finite verbs, the participles tabt ‘lost’ and haft ‘had’, are used instead of finite verbs (e.g. past tense tabte ‘lost’ and havde ‘had’), but they are correctly placed in second position. In (10), the subject os ‘us’ is in oblique form instead of nominative vi ‘we’, but is correctly placed after the verb.

Secondly, the punctuation is not always consistent with the content of the sentence. In these cases, the classification is based on the content of the sentence. For example, (11) was tagged as an interrogative sentence despite the lack of a question mark, because the interrogative pronoun hvad ‘what’ is used.

Finally, we excluded 35 sentences from the analysis for two reasons. Sentences with the adverb måske ‘maybe’ in first position were excluded (N = 11), because the adverb both can be succeeded by verb-subject (12) and subject-verb word order (13) (Beijering, Reference Beijering2010; Boye, Reference Boye2005). Thus, we cannot determine the success rate in this context.

Furthermore, 24 sentences were excluded because the prescribed word order could not be decided. The majority of these cases (N = 18) included the word så ‘so/then’, which can either be used as a conjunction (introducing main or subordinate clauses), or an adverbial. When så is used as a coordinating conjunction, it is used to convey a result or a consequence and is followed by subject–verb word order as in (14). In (15), så is used as an adverb (‘then’) followed by verb–subject word order (both non-authentic examples).

In some cases, we could not determine which of the two meanings the learner intended to use, and we were therefore unable to determine if the word order was correct. Example (16) is written by an Icelandic learner, and here så is followed by verb-subject. The intended meaning of så may either be to convey a consequence (in which case så should have been used as a coordinating conjunction with subject-verb order) or to convey the meaning ‘therefore’ or ‘then’ (in which case så is an adverb in first position requiring verb–subject word order). Due to this ambiguity, example (16) was excluded from the analysis.

In total, 491 declaratives and 158 interrogatives were included in the analysis. We included interrogatives when tagging word order, because previous studies have compared learners’ use of VS in declaratives and interrogatives (e.g. Lund, Reference Lund1997).

4.2. Statistical models

Data were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models for binomial data in RStudio (R Core Team, 2021, ver. 2022.02.1), including the lme4 package (Bates et al., Reference Bates, Maechler, Bolker and Walker2015, ver. 1.1.27.1). P-values were obtained using the lmerTest package (Kuznetsova et al., Reference Kuznetsova, Brockhoff and Christensen2017, ver. 3.1.3) and this formula:

$$ \begin{array}{c}\hskip-3em \mathrm{V}3\_\mathrm{or}\_\mathrm{V}2\sim \mathrm{first}\_\mathrm{constituent}\_\mathrm{length}+\mathrm{subject}\_\mathrm{length}\\ {}+\mathrm{verb}\_\mathrm{length}+\mathrm{test}\_\mathrm{level}+\mathrm{L}1\_\mathrm{V}2+\left(1|\mathrm{participant}\right).\end{array} $$

With this model, we examine the proportion of V2 in relation to the total number of topicalized sentences, and how it is affected by the three independent variables of the study. The fixed effects were the length of the first constituent (number of words in first position), subject length (one word versus multiple words), whether the verb was complex (single versus complex), test level (1–3), and L1 (non-V2 versus V2). For subject and verb length, we expected that the main challenge for learners would be to process more than one word, but for first constituents (which vary in length and usually exceed one word), we expected that the length (and not just the categorical difference between one versus multiple words) could have an effect. The model also included random intercepts for participant. Comparisons were coded using sum contrasts (Schad et al., Reference Schad, Vasishth, Hohenstein and Kliegl2020), so that non-V2 learner was coded as -0.5 and V2 learner was coded as 0.5. For subject length, one word was coded as -0.5, and multiple words as 0.5. For the verbs, not complex was coded as -0.5 and complex as 0.5.

Twenty-two non-V2 learners indicated that one of their L2s was a V2 language (German, Swedish, Norwegian or Dutch). They did not indicate their proficiency level of these additional L2s. To control whether exposure to a V2 language (other than the L1) improved V2 production in Danish, we carried out a post-hoc test comparing non-V2 learners with and without previous exposure to V2. We ran the same model as mentioned above on a dataset where the V2 learners were excluded. Instead of L1 (V2 versus non-V2), we included knowledge of V2 as a fixed effect. No knowledge was coded as -0.5, and V2 knowledge as 0.5.

Both models were fitted using the following procedure: We first tried to include all variables mentioned above. Variables were removed one by one to see whether the fit improved. The fit was best when all were included. Due to the small amount of data for the V2 learners, an interaction between L1 and test level was not included.