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Negation and verb second in Breton

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Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of Breton phrase structure and examines its consequences for the reformulation of the ECP in Rizzi (1990b). Particularly, I argue that subjects must be antecedent governed. I demonstrate that a number of aspects of Breton syntax, particularly subject agreement phenomena in V2 root clauses, are thus explained. In the course of the argument, I present an alternative to the standard analysis of a V2 language, in which I treat V2 not as an absolute characterization of a language containing certain rules, but rather as one relative to the instantiation of an abstract feature [Aff] (see Laka 1990) and the nature of C0 (Platzack 1986, Rizzi 1990a).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Linguistics Board UCSC, 95064, Santa Cruz, CA

    Robin Schafer

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  1. Robin Schafer
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The data in this paper, unless otherwise noted, is from my work with Gildas Hamel, a speaker of Bro-Dreger Breton. I am indebted to him for his patience and his insight. The work here was supported in part by NSF Grant BNS-9021398. I am grateful to Marco Haverkort for his encouragement and Jim McCloskey for his guidance. I have benefitted from discussions with them, as well as from the comments of Judith Aissen, Sandy Chung, Josep Fontana, Carol Georgopoulos, Randy Hendrick, Norbert Hornstein, Bill Ladusaw, Beatrice Santorini, Jean-Yves Urien, and Raffaella Zanuttini.

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Schafer, R. Negation and verb second in Breton. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 13, 135–172 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00992780

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