Jouitteau (2005b)

• Jouitteau, M. 2005b. ‘Nominal Properties of vPs in Breton, A hypothesis for the typology of VSO languages’, Verb First: On the Syntax of Verb Initial Languages, Carnie, Andrew, Heidi Harley and Sheila Ann Dooley (eds.), xiv, 434 pp. (pp. 265–280) Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Preview, Description and reviews

 abstract 
 
 Celtic and Semitic languages show the following clustering of 
 typological properties: 
 
 (i) the Complementarity Principle in the verbal agreement system; 
 (ii) licensing of a genitive dependent by a construct state; 
 (iii) a verbal construction whose object bears genitive. 
 
 The aim of this paper is to show how (i-iii) are derived in one of 
 these languages taken as a case study. 
 I will show that in the Breton language (Continental Celtic), the three 
 properties mentioned above follow straightforwardly from one parameter: 
 the interpretability of the [D] feature on v as represented in (1a), 
 where v is a functional projection similar to D in a DP structure in (1b).
 
 (1) a. [vP Subject v [D- φ 3.SG ] [ VP ] ]
     b. [[[DP]] ... D [ NP ] ]