Le verbe « avoir » à travers les dialectes du breton

Abstract

This article is an investigation of the syntax and parametric variation of the verb “avoir”, based on the empirical domain of dialectal and diachronic variation in Breton. We first introduce the Celtic tuning system characterized by the complementarity effect, and then show how the Breton verb “avoir” is unique, both among other Celtic languages and within the Breton system itself. We propose syntactic tests to reveal its internal structure through different stages of language evolution, from an analytic structure of mihi est to a fully lexicalized structure of “avoir”. We develop the predictions of our hypotheses and show how, for each dialect of Breton, the agreement system, agreement morphology, object behaviour and infinitive paradigms follow from the postulated structure.

Keywords

• syntax
• linguistics
• Breton (language)
• agreement system
• dialectal variation
• verb “avoir”