Welsh Syntax

Welsh, like the other Celtic languages, is best known amongst linguists for its verb-initial word order and its use of initial consonant mutations. However it has many more characteristics which are of interest to syntacticians. This book, first published in 2007, provides a concise and accessible overview of the major syntactic phenomena of Welsh. A broad variety of topics are covered, including finite and infinitival clauses, noun phrases, agreement and tense, word order, clause structure, dialect variation, and the language's historical Celtic background. Drawing on work carried out in both Principles and Parameters theory and Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, it takes contemporary colloquial Welsh as its starting point and draws contrasts with a range of literary and dialectal forms of the language, as well as earlier forms (Middle Welsh) were appropriate. An engaging guide to all that is interesting about Welsh syntax, this book will be welcomed by syntactic theorists, typologists, historical linguists and Celticists alike.

This book, first published in 1988, proposes an analysis of Welsh syntax within the theory of Government and Binding (GB). The main focus of the study is the theory of empty elements and the role of agreement phenomena in relation to empty categories. The study of the Celtic family of languages has emerged as an increasingly fruitful area of research both inside and outside GB theory. Written within the GB framework, this book provides a substantial description of some areas of Welsh syntax. Successive chapters deal with basic word order in main and embedded clauses, the null subject constructions, cliticisation and agreement, relative clauses, topicalisation and wh-questions, and passivisation. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This volume is intended to be used by practicing scholars as well as students. It represents all major and some of the minor trends that have evolved during the past decade. Book titles from all available sources have been included, as well as periodical articles from the major journals, whenever there was evidence of a theoretical approach. To ensure maximum accessibility of the entries listed, books and articles in language other than English and unpublished dissertations and working papers have been excluded. All entries are fully annotated and the volume is completed by indices of authors and subjects.

"Comparison across formal languages is an essential part of formal linguistics. The study of closely-related varieties has proven extremely useful in illuminating relations between cross-linguistic syntactic differences that might otherwise appear unrelated, and has helped to identify the core principles of Universal Grammar. Comparative studies have grown to the point where a reference work is needed to comprehensively explain the state of the field and makes its results more widely known, and this handbook fulfills that need. Its twenty-one commissioned chapters serve two functions: they provide a general and theoretical introduction to comparative syntax, its methodology, and its relation to other domains on linguistic inquiry; and they also provide a systematic selection of the best comparative work being done today on those language groups and families where substantial progress has been achieved. With top-notch editors and contributors from around the world, this volume will be an essential resource for scholars and students in formal linguistics."--

This book brings together for the first time a series of previously published papers featuring Ian Roberts’ pioneering work on diachronic and comparative syntax over the last thirty years in one comprehensive volume. Divided into two parts, the volume engages in recent key topics in empirical studies of syntactic theory, with the eight papers on diachronic syntax addressing major changes in the history of English as well as broader aspects of syntactic change, including the introduction to the formal approach to grammaticalisation, and the eight papers on comparative syntax exploring head-movement, the nature and distribution of clitics, and the nature of parametric variation and change. This comprehensive collection of the author’s body of research on diachronic and comparative syntax is an essential resource for scholars and researchers in theoretical, comparative, and historical linguistics.

This volume, one of the few devoted to Celtic syntax, makes an important contribution to the description of Celtic, focusing on the ordering of major constituents, pronouns, inflection, compounding, and iode-switching. The articles also address current issues in linguistic theory so that Celticists and theoretical linguists alike find this book valuable.