Auxiliary Raising in Cimbrian Embedded Clauses: A Further Step in the Dismantling of the Root-embedded Word Order Asymmetry

Cimbrian is a German minority language still spoken in Northern Italy, which has lost the linear V2 restriction but maintains finite verb movement to the lower portion of the split CP domain, i.e. FinP. In this paper, we will discuss auxiliary raising in the subordinate context as an instance of V-to-T movement. This allows us to explain two relevant correlating phenomena: (i) auxiliary raising is incompatible with a post-verbal DP subject which can only appears in the pre-auxiliary position, and (ii) the finite auxiliary in T turns out to be the hosting head for object clitics instead of the lexical complementizer. Our hypothesis is that the lexicalization of T crucially compromises both the subject agreement relation between Fin and the post-verbal, not raised DP and object cliticization onto the lexical complementizer in Fin. In both cases the resulting linear word order pattern reproduces the one of the Cimbrian root clause and potentially leads to a typological change. In this sense, auxiliary raising can be taken as a step in the dismantling of the well-known German-like word order asymmetry and eventually V2.