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Long Head Movement and Information Packaging in Breton

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Robin J. Schafer
Robin J. Schafer*
Affiliation:
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
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Abstract

This article explores long head movement configurations in Breton. Its purpose is twofold. First it contributes to existing work by demonstrating that Breton long head movement is motivated by information structure. The operation of general economy principles, made sensitive to information structure, determines many of the properties of the Breton construction. Secondly, it is argued that the derivation of the Breton construction does not involve movement per se; minimality conditions on movement are not central to the derivation. Instead, the remaining properties of the construction are attributed to a semantic property of tense-aspect markers which is represented at the LF interface. This work bears on the issue of how to model the interpretive dependency between auxiliaries and main verbs and raises questions concerning the interaction between the stylistic component, information structure, and the LF interface.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article, qui examine les configurations à mouvement de tête à distance en breton, poursuit deux buts principaux. Premièrement, il contribue aux travaux existants en démontrant que le mouvement de tête à distance du breton est motivé par la structure de l’information. L’opération de principes généraux d’économie, rendus sensibles à la structure de l’information, détermine plusieurs des propriétés de la construction en breton. Deuxièmement, il est argumenté que la dérivation de la construction en breton n’implique pas nécessairement un déplacement; les conditions de minimalité sur le mouvement ne sont pas essentielles à cette dérivation. Les autres propriétés de la construction sont plutôt attribuées à une propriété sémantique des marqueurs de temps et aspect représentée à l’interface de la Forme Logique. Cette étude porte sur la question de la représentation de la dépendance d’interprétation des auxiliaires et des verbes principaux et soulève des questions par rapport à l’interaction entre la composante stylistique, l’information de la structure et l’interface de la Forme Logique.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 42 , Special Issue 1-2: Topics in Celtic Syntax , June 1997 , pp. 169 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1997

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