Free-choice and reduplication A study in Breton dependant indefinites

Mélanie Jouitteau (1)

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Indefinites are felicitous with a reading where, internally to a contextually relevant set, the particular choice of referent is irrelevant. When a magician says ''Pick a card'', context favors an interpretation where any card from the set would be a felicitous choice, as long as it is a card from the proposed set, as illustrated for modern Breton (Continental Celtic) in (1)a. Some indefinite constructions have this free-choice reading as the only felicitous one. This paper closely investigates such a [[free choice indefinite]] (FCI) that presents a typologically unusual morphology as illustrated in (1)b. This free-choice indefinite is realized by [[reduplication]] of the head noun around what seems like a spatial proximate deictic morpheme (''-mañ-''). The relevant contrast with the regular indefinite ''ur gartenn'' in (1)a is loss of optionality for the free-choice reading. The sentence in (1)a is felicitous if the magician proposes only one card, whereas (1)b is not. (1) DURING A SHOW, THE MAGICIAN SAYS: a. ''Trapit ur gartenn''. Pick a card 'Pick a card.’ b. ''Trapit kartenn-mañ-kartenn''. pick card-here-card 'Pick a card, any card.’ Breton In this paper, I will first investigate the DP-internal syntax and morphology of the reduplication construction in (1)b. I will propose that it results from the creation of a complex head noun by reduplication in a morphological step operated between syntax and phonological form. Next, I investigate the distribution of the Breton reduplicated FCI. I show that when preceded by a specificity marker, this construction behaves like a regular indefinite. When not preceded by this specificity marker, the noun exhibits the typical distributional restrictions of dependent indefinites. I will show that the bare use has existential quantificational force, but can acquire universal force when bound by a universal quantifier.

Mots clés: brezhoneg; yezhoniezh; doubladur an anv

Mots clés: Free choice items; syntax; Breton grammar; Breton linguistics; Celtic linguistics; indefinites; Reduplication

Mots clés: réduplication; indéfinis; Linguistique bretonne; quantification; linguistique celtique

Domaines: Linguistique

Mélanie Jouitteau. Free-choice and reduplication A study in Breton dependant indefinites. Representations and Interpretations in Celtic Studies, 2015, 978-83-8061-115-3. ⟨hal-02269523⟩