Recent work in word-order typology has demonstrated that the dominant order of verbs and objects (or complements) correlates well with the general ordering tendencies of languages. The work on German reported in this paper suggests, however, that certain traits, such as the order of adverbials, are influenced not only by general ordering tendencies, but also by the order of verb and object in a particular clause. Although OV-related adverbial order is the dominant order, VO-related adverbial order also occurs in main clauses, provided that the clause does not end in a participle, infinitive, or separable verb prefix. That is, the presence of a verbal element after the object seems to block VO-related adverbial order in main clauses as well as in verb-last dependent clauses, while a simple finite main verb in second position--before its object--allows both orders to occur. The conclusion that certain traits are affected by verb position in a given clause, as well as by general ordering tendencies in a language, is also supported by the behavior of gapping in German. Both forward and backward gapping occur in dependent clauses, but VO-related forward gapping is judged ungrammatical by native speakers if it leaves a nonfinite main verb in final position. (Author)