Infinitival constructions in the German dialects of Austria: On variation, constraints and change of a prominent syntactic feature

Infinitival constructions (IC) have received considerable attention from syntacticians and typologists, but less so from variationist linguistics. Based on new data from a comprehen-sive dialect survey, this study investigates the variation and change of IC in Austrian dia-lects. Results reveal clear geographical patterns for different IC variants. Regarding linguis-tic factors, several constraints are identified, most importantly with respect to the IC’s syn-tactical function and governing element (e.g. phase verbs). Moreover, an apparent time anal-ysis shows that the variant zum + infinitive has spread at the expense of all other variants, presumably due to both dialect levelling and dialect-standard advergence.