Optionality and the recovery of temporal information in German verb clusters

While the clause-final placement of finite elements is usually quite rigid in German embedded clauses, verbal clusters mark an exception in that they allow finite temporal auxiliaries to be placed linearly before the verbal elements they embed. The prescriptive rules of Standard German suggest that there is optionality with respect to the two ordering possibilities at least in future clauses. However, previous studies have shown that this also holds for perfect clauses with lassen (‘let’). Based on two experimental studies focussing on verbal clusters with continuative lassen (‘let’) and perception verbs, which supposedly have similar properties, the present paper aims at investigating a) whether there really is proper optionality with respect to placing the finite auxiliary in a cluster-initial or clause-final position, and b) whether preposing the temporal auxiliary induces advantages for the processing of temporal information.