Publisher's Synopsis
The study engages with the theory that verb position change in most Romance languages is traceable to the (near total) loss of what was originally a strict, universally valid >verb-comes-second< rule. This assumption is refuted here on the basis (a) of a critical discussion of traditional and generative studies on the question and (b) of an empirical study by the author based on a diachronic comparison of Bible translations. These investigations reveal that, contrary to previous suppositions, the Romance languages (with the exception of Rhaeto-Romanic) should invariably be analyzed as non-"verb-second" languages.
