Skip to content
Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter Mouton August 13, 2015

Apparent filler–gap mismatches in Welsh

  • Robert D. Borsley EMAIL logo
From the journal Linguistics

Abstract

Filler–gap dependencies involving a clause-initial filler constituent of some kind followed by a matching gap are an important feature of human languages. There are also certain cases where what looks like a filler differs in some way from the following gap. In the case of Welsh there is a mismatch between apparent filler and gap in some nominal cleft sentences. It can be argued, however, that the initial constituent is not a filler but one term of a hidden identity predication. There are various other complexities in this area. There is one word, the identity copula, which only allows a complement that is a gap. There are two cases where a deletion process conceals the identity of the initial constituent in a cleft sentence, making a Progressive Phrase look like a Verb Phrase and a Predicative Phrase look like an Adjective Phrase or a Noun Phrase. Finally, there are three cases where a verb with a gap as a dependent has a special form, two cases involving the predicational copula and one involving all transitive verbs. Thus, a number of mechanisms are required to deal with the full set of facts.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Bob Morris Jones for valuable discussion and help with the data, and to Emyr Davies for help with the data. I have also benefited from discussion with Bob Levine and the members of the East Anglian Welsh Syntax Circle: Louisa Sadler, Ian Roberts, and especially David Willis, and from the comments of two anonymous referees. I am also grateful to Ewa Jaworska for editorial assistance. Any bad bits are my responsibility.

References

Adger, David.2003. Core syntax: A minimalist approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Akmajian, Adrian.1970. On deriving cleft sentences from pseudo-cleft sentences. Linguistic Inquiry1. 14935.Search in Google Scholar

Awbery, Gwenllian.1977. A transformational view of Welsh relative clauses. Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies27. 155206.Search in Google Scholar

Baker, Mark C.2001. The atoms of language: The mind’s hidden rules of grammar. New York: Basic Books.Search in Google Scholar

Beavers, John & Ivan A.Sag.2004. Coordinate ellipsis and apparent non-constituent coordination. In StefanMüller (ed.), Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, 4869. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.10.21248/hpsg.2004.3Search in Google Scholar

Borsley, Robert D.1989. An HPSG approach to Welsh. Journal of Linguistics25. 333354.10.1017/S0022226700014134Search in Google Scholar

Borsley, Robert D.1999. Mutation and constituent structure in Welsh. Lingua109. 263300.10.1016/S0024-3841(99)00019-4Search in Google Scholar

Borsley, Robert D.2008. On some Welsh unbounded dependency constructions. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics57(4). 121.Search in Google Scholar

Borsley, Robert D.2009. On the superficiality of Welsh agreement. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory27. 225265.10.1007/s11049-009-9067-3Search in Google Scholar

Borsley, Robert D.2010. An HPSG approach to Welsh unbounded dependencies. In StefanMüller (ed.), Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, 4767. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.10.21248/hpsg.2010.5Search in Google Scholar

Borsley, Robert D.2013. On the nature of Welsh unbounded dependencies. Lingua133. 129.10.1016/j.lingua.2013.03.005Search in Google Scholar

Borsley, Robert D. & Bob M.Jones.2005. Welsh negation and grammatical theory. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Search in Google Scholar

Borsley, Robert D., MaggieTallerman & DavidWillis.2007. The syntax of Welsh. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511486227Search in Google Scholar

Bouma, Gosse, RobertMalouf & Ivan A.Sag.2001. Satisfying constraints on extraction and adjunction. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory19. 165.10.1023/A:1006473306778Search in Google Scholar

Bresnan, Joan.2001. Lexical-Functional Syntax. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Chaves, Rui P.2006. Coordination of unlikes without unlike categories. In StefanMüller (ed.), Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar, 102122. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.10.21248/hpsg.2006.6Search in Google Scholar

Chomsky, Noam.1977. On wh-movement. In PeterW. Culicover, ThomasWasow & AdrianAkmajian (eds.), Formal syntax, 71132. New York: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar

Crysmann, Berthold.2003. An asymmetric theory of peripheral sharing in HPSG: Conjunction reduction and coordination of unlikes. In GerhardJaeger, PaolaMonachesi, GeraldPenn & ShulyWintner (eds.), Proceedings of FGVienna: The 8th Conference on Formal Grammar, 4564. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Search in Google Scholar

Culicover, Peter W.1999. Syntactic nuts: Hard cases, syntactic theory and language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Ginzburg, Jonathan & Ivan A.Sag.2000. Interrogative investigations: The form, meaning and use of English interrogatives. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Search in Google Scholar

Heycock, Caroline & AnthonyKroch.1999. Pseudocleft connectedness: Implications for the LF interface level. Linguistic Inquiry30. 365397.10.1162/002438999554110Search in Google Scholar

Jones, Bob M.2010. Tense and aspect in informal Welsh. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110227970Search in Google Scholar

Jones, Bob M. & Alan R.Thomas.1977. The Welsh language: Studies in its syntax and semantics. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kathol, Andreas.2000. Linear syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Kayne, Richard.1980. Extensions of binding and case-marking. Linguistic Inquiry11. 5591.Search in Google Scholar

King, Gareth.1993. Modern Welsh: A comprehensive grammar. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Mikkelsen, Line.2011. Copular clauses. In ClaudiaMaienborn, Klausvon Heusinger & PaulPortner (eds.), Semantics: An international handbook of natural language meaning, vol. 2, 18051829. Berlin & New York: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110255072.1805Search in Google Scholar

Partee, Barbara.1986. Ambiguous pseudoclefts with unambiguous be. In StephenBerman, Jae-WongChoe & JoyceMcDonough (eds.), Proceedings of the North Eastern Linguistic Society 16, 354366. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Search in Google Scholar

Pollard, Carl & Ivan A.Sag.1994. Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Search in Google Scholar

Pullum, Geoffrey K.2009. Model-theoretic syntax and the implausibility of movement. Paper presented at the University of Essex, December.Search in Google Scholar

Roberts, Ian & AndersHolmberg.2006. On the role of parameters in Universal Grammar: A reply to Newmeyer. In HansBroekhuis, NorbertCorver, RinyHuybregts, UrsulaKleinhenz & JanKoster (ed.), Organizing grammar: Linguistic studies in honor of Henk van Riemsdijk, 538553. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110892994.538Search in Google Scholar

Rouveret, Alain.2002. How are resumptive pronouns linked to the periphery? In PaulPica & JohanRooryck (eds.), Linguistic variation yearbook 2, 123184. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/livy.2.07rouSearch in Google Scholar

Sadler, Louisa.1988. Welsh syntax: A government-binding approach. London: Croom Helm.Search in Google Scholar

Tallerman, Maggie.1996. Fronting constructions in Welsh. In Robert D.Borsley & IanRoberts (eds.), The syntax of the Celtic languages, 97124. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511586279.004Search in Google Scholar

Thorne, David A.1993. A comprehensive Welsh grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar

Warner, Anthony R.2000. English auxiliaries without lexical rules. In Robert D.Borsley (ed.), The nature and function of syntactic categories, 167220. New York: Academic Press.10.1163/9781849500098_008Search in Google Scholar

Webelhuth, Gert.2008. A lexical-constructional approach to ‘movement mismatches’. Paper presented at The Fifth International Conference on Construction Grammar. The University of Texas at Austin, 26–28 September 2008.Search in Google Scholar

Webelhuth, Gert.2012. The distribution of that-clauses in English: An SBCG account. In HansBoas & Ivan A.Sag (eds.), Sign-Based Construction Grammar, 203227. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Search in Google Scholar

Willis, David W. E.2000. On the distribution of resumptive pronouns and wh-trace in Welsh. Journal of Linguistics36. 531573.10.1017/S0022226700008380Search in Google Scholar

Zaring, Laurie.1996. Two ‘be’ or not two ‘be’: Identity, predication and the Welsh copula. Linguistics and Philosophy19. 103142.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2015-8-13
Published in Print: 2015-9-1

©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton

Downloaded on 28.3.2024 from https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/ling-2015-0024/html
Scroll to top button