In the following paper, we claim that the so-called Inversionen nach und are instances of V1 clauses. Although these constructions are attested from Old High German to the 19th century, we focus on the Middle High German period. Our arguments are based upon information- and discourse-structural properties. These clauses share typical properties of V1 clauses, namely, the absence of a topic-comment division, their relevance for textual cohesion, the accessibility status of the subject, the lexical semantics of their predicate, and their expressivity.*

This article examines the imperative of say as a pragmatic marker in English and Dutch. Present-day say and zeg ‘say’ are contrasted on the basis of comparable corpus data. This comparison, together with additional diachronic data, serves as input for a study of the typical developments of the imperative of say as a pragmatic marker. Further-more, on the basis of a wider range of European and other languages, the article explores the possibility of the developments in English and Dutch being an areal phenomenon.*