The Syntax of Welsh

This 2007 book outlines the major syntactic characteristics of Welsh, including word order, agreement, tense and clause structure.

Robert D. Borsley (Author), Maggie Tallerman (Author), David Willis (Author)

9780521836302, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 October 2007

410 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.76 kg

"This volume is a wonderful addition to linguistic work on Welsh that may serve to draw much-deserved attention to this highly complex and fascinating but little-known language. One of the beauties of the book is that even for readers less interested in the mechanics of syntactic analysis, the descriptive material on the various topics covered lays out interesting and nuanced detail, some of which is rarely or never found elsewhere in print." --Anthropological Linguistics

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.

1. Introduction
2. Simple finite clauses
3. Infinitival clauses
4. Wh-constructions
5. Noun phrases
6. More on agreement
7. Syntax and mutation
8. More on verbal syntax
9. Historical syntax
10. Welsh as a VSO language.

Subject Areas: Grammar, syntax & morphology [CFK], Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF], Linguistics [CF]