Skip to main content
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Decoding Middle Welsh clauses or “Avoid Ambiguity”

  • EMAIL logo , and
Published/Copyright: December 16, 2014
Indogermanische Forschungen
From the journal Indogermanische Forschungen Volume 119 Issue 1

Abstract

Middle Welsh is a language with a restricted set of morphosyntactic distinctions for grammatical relations and with relatively free word order in positive main declarative causes. However, syntactic ambiguity rarely, if ever, arises in natural texts. The present article shows in a corpus-based study how syntactic ambiguity is prevented and how morphological features interact with two referential properties, namely animacy and accessibility, in order to successfully identify grammatical relations in Middle Welsh. Further lower-tier factors are the semantics of the verb and the wider narrative context. The article complements recent insights suggesting that subject-verb agreement is not only determined by wordorder patterns, but also by referential properties of subjects.

Keywords : Middle Welsh; constituent order; animacy; accessibility
Online erschienen: 2014-12-16
Erschienen im Druck: 2014-11-1

© 2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Vorwort der Herausgeber
  3. Contents
  4. A note on the functional distribution of ille in Late Latin
  5. The origin of the Baltic inchoative in -sta-
  6. Once more on Hittite ā/e-ablauting ḫi-verbs
  7. The long vowel in WGmc. *hlūdV
  8. Homeric κρείων ‘lord’ and the Indo-European word for ‘head’
  9. Decoding Middle Welsh clauses or “Avoid Ambiguity”
  10. Did murmur spread in Pre-Proto-Indo-European?
  11. Intensifiers and reflexives in SAE, Insular Celtic and English
  12. Beiträge zur Leidener Arbeitstagung 2013
  13. Ares the Ripper
  14. Tone variation in the Baltic ia-presents
  15. “Narten formations” versus “Narten roots”
  16. Surprise at length of Tocharian nouns
  17. From phonetics to grammar
  18. Notes on three “acrostatic” neuter s-stems
  19. Monosyllabic circumflexion or shortening?
  20. The augment of vowel-initial roots and vṛddhi–derivation in the Indo–Iranian languages
  21. The lengthened grade in Germanic hypocoristica
  22. The fourth makes it whole?
  23. Wortindex
https://doi.org/10.1515/if-2014-0008
Keywords for this article
Middle Welsh; constituent order; animacy; accessibility

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Vorwort der Herausgeber
  3. Contents
  4. A note on the functional distribution of ille in Late Latin
  5. The origin of the Baltic inchoative in -sta-
  6. Once more on Hittite ā/e-ablauting ḫi-verbs
  7. The long vowel in WGmc. *hlūdV
  8. Homeric κρείων ‘lord’ and the Indo-European word for ‘head’
  9. Decoding Middle Welsh clauses or “Avoid Ambiguity”
  10. Did murmur spread in Pre-Proto-Indo-European?
  11. Intensifiers and reflexives in SAE, Insular Celtic and English
  12. Beiträge zur Leidener Arbeitstagung 2013
  13. Ares the Ripper
  14. Tone variation in the Baltic ia-presents
  15. “Narten formations” versus “Narten roots”
  16. Surprise at length of Tocharian nouns
  17. From phonetics to grammar
  18. Notes on three “acrostatic” neuter s-stems
  19. Monosyllabic circumflexion or shortening?
  20. The augment of vowel-initial roots and vṛddhi–derivation in the Indo–Iranian languages
  21. The lengthened grade in Germanic hypocoristica
  22. The fourth makes it whole?
  23. Wortindex
Downloaded on 11.5.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/if-2014-0008/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button