Anderson (1981)

De Arbres
  • Anderson, Stephen. 1981. 'Topicalization in Breton', Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 7:27-39. texte.


 "This paper grows out of a discussion by Sandra Chung and myself some years ago (Anderson & Chung 1977) of the syntax of some languages with basic VSO order. We concluded then that in these languages, there are often arguments for distinguishing between subject and non-subject NP's. Part of the interest of this comes from the fact that the configurational basis for this distinction which is normally available in an SVO language like English does not generalize directly to VSO structures, though we did not suggest a specific alternative. 
 Among the facts discussed in that paper was the treatment of topicalization in Breton. In this language, it seemed that some facts indicated the existence of a constituent like a VP, despite the fact that an element containing the verb and its object(s), but not the subject, is apparently not a continuous substring of normally structured Breton clauses. 
 In fact, however, it now seems to me that this conclusion resulted from a inadequate analysis of the properties of topicalization in the language, and is practically a paradigm example of the dangers of drawing theoretical conclusions directly from linguistic facts, rather than from fully wordked out analyses. My purpose here is to rectify the situation by sketching some of the points basic to an adequate analysis of Breton topicalization."
 fn1:
 "This paper is based on (limited) fieldwork in Brittany during the summers of 1971, 1972, and 1974, supported in part by research funds from Harvard University; and on material to be found in the published literature on Breton (especially Trépos, [1968; Gros, 1966, 1970, 1974; and Le Gléau, 1973). I am grateful to Sandra Chung, Sharon Hargus, and Tracy Thomas-Flinders for recent discussions contributing to my understanding of these facts.
 Forms cited below represent the "standard" literary language, especially as spoken in the Tréguier region." 


à propos

  • Wojcik, Richard. 1981. 'On so-called verb topicalization in Breton', LSA 56, Barnard College, Columbia University.
pointe que le verbe ne peut pas être topicalisé devant le verbe tensé car cela prédirait incorrectement la possibilité de le faire à longue distance et au-dessus de la négation.