German word order rules require subordinate clauses to place finite verbs in final position.

the verdict

SUPPORTED

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2 sources for · 0 against

Counts group repeated records of the same source within each side. They do not measure evidence strength or source independence.

Is it true that German word order rules require subordinate clauses to place finite verbs in final position?

Yes. German grammatical rules dictate that subordinate clauses place finite verbs in the final position, a standard typological feature supported by linguistic literature.

Verdict: SUPPORTED · 2 sources for, 0 against · Last checked 6 Aug 2026

The analysis

The retrieved papers explicitly confirm that German subordinate clauses feature a verb-final canonical word order (Papers 5 and 8). There are no papers contradicting this foundational rule of German syntax. Therefore, the verdict is SUPPORTED.

Evidence for · 2

A competitive mechanism selecting verb-second versus verb-final word order in causative and argumentative clauses of spoken Dutch: A corpus-linguistic study

2018

States that in German, the canonical order of subordinate clauses places the finite verb in the final position.

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Kempen, G. & Harbusch, K. (2018). A competitive mechanism selecting verb-second versus verb-final word order in causative and argumentative clauses of spoken Dutch: A corpus-linguistic study. doi.org. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.LANGSCI.2018.05.005

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More for · 1

The role of variation of verb placement in the input

2020

Discusses verb placement in German relative clauses, noting the standard verb-final structure.

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Sanfelici, E., Trabandt, C., & Schulz, P. (2020). The role of variation of verb placement in the input. doi.org. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198844303.003.0034

Related receipts

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first checked06 Aug 2026

judged → SUPPORTED · 6606 Aug 2026

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