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On the distribution of resumptive pronouns and wh-trace in Welsh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2001

DAVID WILLIS
DAVID WILLIS
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Abstract

Welsh has generally been analyzed as allowing two types of relative clauses and other A´-constructions, one involving movement leaving a wh-trace, the other involving a resumptive pronoun in situ. In this paper, I argue that, despite the appearance of agreement, which seems to license a null resumptive pronoun, relative clauses formed on a number of syntactic positions (object of periphrastic verb, object of preposition, embedded subject) may involve movement. Both movement and non-movement strategies are argued to be available for some syntactic positions (object of preposition, embedded subject), and separate constraints must therefore be established for the distribution of each. Resumptive pronouns are argued to be subject to a variant of the A´-Disjointness Requirement. For wh-trace, the Welsh evidence is compatible only with an account involving multiple cyclic movement via a VP-external position (SpecAgrOP) as well as SpecCP.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , November 2000 , pp. 531 - 573
Copyright
2000 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This paper has benefited from the comments of a number of people. In particular, I would like to thank Bob Borsley, Kerstin Hoge, Maggie Tallerman, Matthew Whelpton, and two anonymous JL referees for comments on draft versions of this paper. They are not responsible for the use to which I have put their comments. I would also like to thank Gwen Awbery, Damian Walford Davies, Emyr Davies, Bob Morris Jones and Heather Williams for grammaticality judgments.