This work provides an analysis of word order and clause structure in Welsh, within the context of a minimalist version of principles and parameters theory. The central issue is the analysis of VSO order, the only unmarked clausal order in Welsh. The question is: which values of which parameters of Universal Grammar determine VSO order? Behind this basic descriptive goal, there are two theoretical questions. The first has to do with the conditions of adequacy on parameters: these must be both typologizable and learnable. The second concerns the Extended Projection Principle (EPP). Developing th ... More

This work provides an analysis of word order and clause structure in Welsh, within the context of a minimalist version of principles and parameters theory. The central issue is the analysis of VSO order, the only unmarked clausal order in Welsh. The question is: which values of which parameters of Universal Grammar determine VSO order? Behind this basic descriptive goal, there are two theoretical questions. The first has to do with the conditions of adequacy on parameters: these must be both typologizable and learnable. The second concerns the Extended Projection Principle (EPP). Developing the conception of this principle in Chomsky (2000, 2001), it is concluded that it is a parametrized property of the C-system and/or the I-system, and that it seems to be intrinsically connected to the defective nature of certain functional heads. Successive chapters deal with the analysis of VSO orders, the Welsh Case-agreement system as it applies to both subjects and objects, the ‘verbal noun’, and the nature of the C-system. The last chapter takes up the related but distinct question of the theoretical status of head-movement, arguing that this may be construed as movement to a specifier position followed by morphological reanalysis of adjacent heads. Throughout, Welsh is compared to the other Celtic languages, and to the Romance and Germanic languages. Comparison with Romance is particularly revealing in relation to the agreement system, and comparison with Germanic in relation to C-system.