Steve Hewitt

The hypothesis of a Hamito-Semitic (or Afro-Asiatic) substratum in the Insular Celtic languages elaborated successively by Morris Jones, Pokorny and Wagner to explain striking structural resemblances between Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic is enjoying a revival. Linguists have generally assumed that the parallels between Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic are to be explained in terms of Greenbergian typology (all languages of the VSO type). However, recent work by Gensler, and also Jongeling and Vennemann, compels us to revisit the substratum hypothesis. This article presents the main contributions on the question, provides a table showing the principal points of similarity by author and language, briefly comments on each of these points, and, regretting the reluctance of substratalists to consider typological explanations, sounds a note of caution against what might be termed "substratum frenzy". In connection with the recent interpretation of Tartessian inscriptions from the southwest of the Iberian peninsula as an early form of Celtic, a new scenario suggests itself: Phoenician may have exerted substratal influence on Tartessian, which in turn may have fed into the "Milesian" language traditionally said to have brought Q-Celtic from Iberia to Ireland; if this language also spread to Britain, that would explain the presence of "non-Indo-European" traits in Insular Celtic, P-Celtic coming subsequently directly from Gaul having acquired them from the Q-Celtic already present in Britain. Such a scenario would reconcile the two fundamental divisions between Insular Celtic (with "non-Indo-European" traits) and Continental Celtic (without) on the one hand and Q-Celtic and P-Celtic (without on the continent, with in Britain) on the other. =m

Fairly broad transcription. Stress is strong. Unstressed vowels are short, stressed vowels are half long unless before fortis (voiceless, double) consonants or consonant clusters, where they are short. Adjacent vowels are in hiatus and thus form two syllables, w, j are consonantal except when final or before a consonant where they represent the second element of falling closing diphthongs. , ã = a in W. Treger, ã in E. Treger. Contingent nasality before nasal consonants is not marked, ë, ä are e, a reduced towards ə except in the slowest, clearest forms of speech, θ = rounded ə. Lenis obstruent devoicing in final pausal position and in sandhi is marked .; fortis obstruent voicing in sandhi is marked ˅. h is a lenis, usually unvoiced, with some voicing possible between vowels and next to liquids; in final pausal position or in sandhi = x. m is a fortis. ɲ is a fortis; there is usually a j-glide between it and a preceding vowel, r is a light flap or trill; with some speakers it is ɻ; in some parts of Brittany it is R or B, but not in Treger; when written r it is not usually heard except in slow, clear forms of speech. I may be heard velarized in some districts, but not in Treger. t, d, n may be somewhat advanced towards a dental position, p, t, k may have slight aspiration except after s.

The hypothesis of a Hamito‐Semitic (or Afro‐Asiatic) substratum in the Insular Celtic languages elaborated successively by Morris Jones, Pokorny and Wagner to explain striking structural resemblances between Insular Celtic and Hamito‐Semitic is enjoying a revival. Linguists have generally assumed that the parallels between Insular Celtic and Hamito‐Semitic are to be explained in terms of Greenbergian typology (all languages of the VSO type). However, recent work by Gensler, and also Jongeling and Vennemann, compels us to revisit the substratum hypothesis. This article presents the main contributions on the question, provides a table showing the principal points of similarity by author and language, briefly comments on each of these points, and, regretting the reluctance of substratalists to consider typological explanations, sounds a note of caution against what might be termed ‘substratum frenzy’.

From a peak of over 1 million speakers in 1950, Breton, a severely endangered Brythonic Celtic language in Brittany, northwestern France, now has probably under 200,000 speakers, with numerous semi-speakers and rusty speakers, and approximately 0.2-0.3% literacy (ability to write a simple personal letter) in Breton among native speakers. Practically all natural transmission by native speakers ceased between the 1950s and 1970s, so the great majority of native speakers are now over 60 years old. The language further suffers from an absence of standardization among native speakers (there is considerable dialectal fragmentation; most speakers know only their local dialect). There are three competing orthographies, with the linguistically least appropriate (ZH) accounting for 85% of users, the vast majority of whom are non-native learners. Language activism, confined largely to learners since the 1920s, began to expand significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to the establishment of all-Breton Diwan immersion schools and public Div Yezh and private (state-assisted Catholic) Dihun bilingual schools. However total numbers in these three Breton-language streams come to less than 3% of school-age children in Brittany. The dominant language among learners, both children and adults, is an artificial standard with numerous, and to native speakers, impenetrable neologisms, but strong French phonetics, syntax and phraseology. While no one factor, apart from the lexicon, impedes communication between learners and traditional speakers outright, the cumulative effect is to make intercomprehension laborious, and usually unfeasible in practice. With the exception of 5-10% of learners, most neo-speakers do not readily understand traditional speech. Traditional speakers tend to be ashamed of their language, and reluctant to speak it to those who do not master their own particular variety fluently. Neos, on the other hand, often explain away their lack of facility with native-like Breton by claiming that it is so " degenerate " that it is not worth saving, and that no matter how faulty their own Breton, as they say in Ireland: Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla cliste 'Better to have broken Irish than clever English'. The rather extreme Breton situation, where native Breton speech is now rarely heard in public and is all but inaccessible to learners, raises the question as to how feasible it is for a whole cohort to revitalize a language without intensive contact with native speakers. Part of the answer may lie in redesigning teaching materials to make native-like Breton more readily available to learners, and in tweaking the written standard to allow more faithful reflection of the living dialects.

"Breton has a venerable, if increasingly skewed orthographical tradition, so there can be no question of developing a Breton orthography from scratch. Early Modern Breton begins in 1659, when Maunoir introduced the iconic <c’h> against French <ch> and systematically indicated initial consonant mutations. For most of the 19th c., one track continues traditional Early Modern habits, the other innovating and systematizing, leading ultimately to the 1908 KLT (Kerne-Leon-Treger) standardization, which in turn fed into the 1941 Peurunvan (ZH; “fully unified” [with the traditional Gwened, SE]) orthography. The 1955 Orthographe universitaire (OU) “while removing certain inconsistencies, introduces new ones” (Jackson 1967). The 1975 Orthographe interdialectal (ID), aimed at including the best of both ZH and OU while ensuring better coverage of regular dialect correspondences, did not go as far as possible in that direction. At each stage of modern spelling reforms, unfortunate choices have been made, often owing to insufficient comprehension of interdialectal correspondences. At the same time, the implications of the massive shift in users from native speakers to learners have not been taken properly into account. Finally, at no point has there been a real debate on the relative merits of a simple monodialectal standard vs a more complex supradialectal standard. "

"The hypothesis of a Hamito-Semitic substratum in the Insular Celtic languages elaborated successively by Morris-Jones, Pokorny and Wagner to explain a number of striking structural resemblances between Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic is enjoying a revival. While linguists have generally assumed that the parallels between Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic are to be explained in terms of Greenbergian typology (all languages of the VSO type), the recent work of Gensler, and also Jongeling and Vennemann, compels us to revisit the substratum hypothesis. The purpose of this article is to act as a guide to the main contributions on the question (several of which are reproduced in this volume), provide a table, arranged by author and language, showing the principal points of similarity, comment on a number of those points, and sound a note of caution against what might be called “substratum frenzy”. An extensive bibliography is provided, with the following sections: “The Insular Celtic / Hamito-Semitic question”, “Celtic – general”, “Hamito-Semitic – general”, and “Celtic influence on English”."

Publié initialement dans La Bretagne Linguistique, 2, 1985-1986, pp. 132-148.
Traduction anglaise: The progressive in Breton in the light of the English progressive, pp. 167-188 in Martin J.
BALL, James FIFE, Erich POPPE and Jenny ROWLANDS (eds), Celtic Linguistics: Readings in the Brythonic
Languages - Festschrift for T. Arwyn Watkins, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 68, John Benjamins,
Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990.

Breton verbal syntax is simultaneously VSO and V-2, or more precisely [P = predicate syntagm] PSO/XPSO and [T = tense] T-2. "Bare" presentations begin with a predicate syntagm; "lead-in" presentations with a non-predicate constituent [X = S/O/ADV/CIRC, etc.], which may be either thematic or focused. In "bare" presentation, the negative tense particle ne is sufficient to fill the first position in order to satisfy the T-2 constraint. But in the affirmative, with simple verbs, a dummy auxiliary "do" arises; with auxiliary structures (copula, existential, compound tenses), there is AUX-PRED > PRED-AUX inversion The apersonal conjugation, formally identical with the 3SG, marking tense, but not person or number, is used before expressed nominal subjects, and after initial subjects in the affirmative. The personal conjugation marking tense, person and number represents the inclusion of post-verbal subject pronouns; it is also used after initial s...

The values of the six Breton tense-aspect-mood (TAM) sets shifted from Middle Breton: 1a Present/Future 2a Present Subjunctive 3a Preterite 1b Imperfect 2b Imperfect Subjunctive > Potential 3b Pluperfect > Hypothetical to Modern Breton: 1a Present 2a Future / Subjunctive 3a Preterite (literary) 1b Imperfect 2b Potential / Subjunctive 3b Hypothetical / 2nd Future The verbs BE and HAVE have additional Present Habitual and Imperfect Habitual TAM sets. (1) an amser a = veż braw alîes 'tro Gouel-Mikael the weather AFF is.HABº fine often around Michaelmas 'The weather is often fine around Michaelmas.' The most frequent use of the Habitual TAM sets is for present/imperfect of future reference: (2) ma ≠ veż braw an amser e ≠ h-äffomp da = Gemper if is.HABº fine the weather AFF we.will.go to Kemper 'If the weather is fine, we will go to Kemper.' The verb BE also has separate Present Situative and Imperfect Situative forms, and a separate Existential form in the Present. Breton TAM sets-regular verb lenn 'read' Abstract morphological and semantic matrix-1 PL forms (Middle Breton > Modern Breton) factual, general virtual, projected H > FF past S > J (CH) basic-1a lennomp 2a lennHomp > lennFFomp 3a lennSomp > lennJomp prior E 1b lennEmp 2b lennHEmp > lennFFEmp 3b lennSEmp > lennJEmp There are still traces of the former subjunctive value of what is now Future tense: (1) Goulenn a ra ma vo gwraed ul lesenn neweż. ask.INF AFF doesº that beºFUT/SBJ made.PP a law new 'He/she asks that a new law should be made.' Modern Breton has two conditional TAM sets, with the following infixes:-FFE-2b Potential (Conditional) (= French Subjunctive)-JE/CHE-3b Hypothetical (Irrealis Conditional); Secondary Future (Future-in-Past) Increasing degrees of unlikelihood-traditionally the following three possibilities for the conditional: (2a) ma meffe arc'hant e prenffenn an ti-se if I.would.have.POT money AFF I.would.buy.POT the house-that 'If I had money, I would buy that house.' [potential-I must make an appointment with my bank manager]

The values of the six Breton tense-aspect-mood (TAM) sets shifted from Middle Breton:
1a Present/Future 2a Present Subjunctive 3a Preterite
1b Imperfect 2b Imperfect Subjunctive > Potential 3b Pluperfect > Hypothetical
to Modern Breton:
1a Present 2a Future / Subjunctive 3a Preterite (literary)
1b Imperfect 2b Potential / Subjunctive 3b Hypothetical / 2nd Future
The verbs BE and HAVE have additional Present Habitual and Imperfect Habitual TAM sets. The most frequent use of the Habitual TAM sets is for present/imperfect of future reference. The verb BE also has separate Present Situative and Imperfect Situative forms, and a separate Existential form in the Present.
Breton TAM sets – regular verb lenn ‘read’
Abstract morphological and semantic matrix – 1 PL forms (Middle Breton > Modern Breton)
factual, general virtual, projected H > FF past S > J (CH)
basic – 1a lennomp 2a lennHomp > lennFFomp 3a lennSomp > lennJomp
prior E 1b lennEmp 2b lennHEmp > lennFFEmp 3b lennSEmp > lennJEmp
There are still traces of the former subjunctive value of what is now Future tense.
Modern Breton has two conditional TAM sets, with the following infixes:
-FFE- 2b Potential (Conditional) (= French Subjunctive)
-JE/CHE- 3b Hypothetical (Irrealis Conditional); Secondary Future (Future-in-Past)
Increasing degrees of unlikelihood – three basic conditional constructions
‘If I had [POT] money, I would buy [POT] a house’ (possible);
‘If I had [HYP] money, I would buy [HYP] a house’ (irrealis, unlikely);
‘If I had had [HYP PRF] money, I would have bought [HYP PRF] a house’.
Widespread confusion of Potential -ff- and Hypothetical -j-/-ch- sets – in other words 2b and 3b often confused – except with non-auxiliary BE and HAVE (derived from BE with proclitic oblique pronouns).
Conditionals in compound (perfect) tense, nearly always have the auxiliary in Hypothetical (historically Pluperfect) rather than Potential (historically Subjunctive). In the apodosis (main clause) of perfect conditionals, the auxiliary in Hypothetic Conditional is often replaced by simple Imperfect (very widespread, at least in NE). Use of Potential or Hypothetical for French ‘deductive conditional’.
Potential or Hypothetical for doubtful complements following main clause in Present = French subjunctive; Hypothetical only after Imperfect main clause. Future for future complements following a main clause in Present. Hypothetical (= Future-in-Past) for future complements following main clause in Imperfect or Present Perfect.
Imperative: 2SG, 1PL, 2PL forms available; Optative in 3SG; moribund, mainly in fixed phrases. The Future indicative may be used for polite, but firm orders. The Future interrogative may be used for polite requests. The simple infinitive may also be used with imperative force. Another common way of expressing a wishful imperative or suggestion is to use the infinitive of BE (= HAVE for compound perfect tenses), which is elliptical for ‘(if you had only wanted to) have done’.
Finally, with modal auxiliaries in a conditional mood and a compound perfect tense, Breton, like English, tends to put the auxiliary in the conditional and the lexical verb in an infinitival compound perfect ‘could have done’, unlike French, which has a conditional compound tense on the auxiliary ‘aurait pu faire’; such a construction in Breton is often the sign of a non-native speaker.

Breton manages the trick of being both VSO (from Insular Celtic) and V2 (from Old French and ultimately Germanic). A more accurate characterization would be (X)(Aux)PSO and T2 (tense-second), where P = predicate; X = any fronted element except predicate, either focused ˈX or scene-setting °X. The three verbal structures are (a) SIMPLE VERB; (b) AUX-PRED (verbal [perfect tenses], adjectival, nominal, existential predicates); and (c) DYN-VP + GRAMMATICAL VERB, including both BE.SIT + progressive dynamic VP and dynamic VP + ACTIVITY-DO.

... Specimens: 'The North wind and the sun'. Breton (Treger dialect). Article author query; hewitt s [PubMed] [Google Scholar]. S. Hewitt a1. ... Lenis obstruent devoicing in final pausal position and in sandhi is marked .; fortis obstruent voicing in sandhi is marked ˅. ...

“Remarques sur la création terminologique en breton”, colloque “Néologie et terminologie des langues minoritaires d’Europe atlantique”, Saint-Brieuc, septembre 2003.
This paper was given at a conference on Neologisms and Terminology in Minority Languages of Atlantic Europe, Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, September 2003, but the proceedings were never published. There is a clear “lexical deficit” in spontaneous traditional Breton, which is normally filled either by wholesale borrowing from French or code-switching with French. It may be that assimilated loanwords have helped Breton to survive - a uniform loanword understood all over the Breton-speaking area rather than widely divergent native variants; something similar has been mooted for Persian and the widespread lexical items of Arabic origin. French lexical items have been present in Breton for a very long time, making Breton a kind of Celtic English, in which loanwords actually outnumber words of native stock. Like English, Breton shows productive use of French derivational morphology with native roots: inevabl ‘undrinkable’, but this is normally excluded from the literary language. Some of the native derivational morphology has become partially unproductive; when combined with unfamiliar roots, the results can be quite opaque to native speakers. Greater efforts should be made to revitalize these. The traditional opposition between purists and populists with regard to neologisms is exaggerated, populists commonly avoiding topics which require many neologisms. Unfortunately, when “international” words are adapted to literary Breton, this usually entails adding a syllable against the French version, unlike what happens in Irish or Welsh, possibly so that the penultimate stressed syllable in Breton coincides with the final stressed syllable in French; this makes these adapted internationalisms long and unwieldy. A few paragraphs from the Breton version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights shows an alarming proportion ‒ around one-third ‒ of words not familiar to ordinary traditional speakers of Breton, and this goes a long way to explain why such speakers are reluctant to attempt to follow literary Breton. Dissemination of neologisms takes place essentially in the silo of learners’ networks, and does not reach most native speakers. Activists fight for Breton “because it exists”, but for the most part, they do not really like what actually exists, and rather than learn the authentic language, they expend most of their energy on refashioning the language in their own guise so that it fully performs the identity function they seek: “we can say everything in Breton” (no matter whether native speakers understand or not). Five recommendations in conclusion: (1) accept commonly used French loanwords which are well integrated in the morphological system; (2) adapt the lexical basis of neologisms according to the audience: veriffiañ, veriffikatîon for the general public; gwiriekâd, gwiriekadur for activists; (3) accept internationalisms, but with the shortest possible form, and no spurious “Celticizing”: ellips, ekonomik/ekonomeg, geographi, socialism rather that ellipsenn, ekonomikel, jeografiezh, sokialouriezh; (4) introduce linguistic discussion programmes in Breton: comparison of various dialects, lexical variants, literary vocabulary, terminological proposals, etc. with the participation of experts and ordinary native speakers; (5) encourage a broad public debate on the kind of Breton sought: a continuation of spontaneous native Breton, with gradual growing together of dialects and measured lexical creation, or (what we currently have) a radical shift, burning all bridges with native speakers.

Since the Middle Breton (MBr.) period there have been significant shifts in the primary values of the six Breton TAM sets, giving rise to two conditionals, one (potential or present conditional in ffe– derived from an earlier imperfect subjunctive (< MBr. –he–), the other (hypothetical or past conditional in –je ) from a former pluperfect (< MBr. se–). Traditionally this gave a three-way distinction: e larffenn ‘I would say’ (potential, possible), e larjenn ‘I would say (hypothetical, unlikely), and compound perfect e mije lared ‘I would have said’ (irrealis). Apart from with the verbs BE and HAVE, the evidence of a number of dialect studies shows that the two conditionals are now frequently confused in the simple tenses. The compound perfect conditional is formed in the majority KLT dialects almost exclusively with the hypothetical conditional, except in the SE (Gwened and neighbouring areas), where the je– / –se– forms express not an irrealis conditional, but an imperfect habitual. In the SE then, the ‘potential’ ffe– / he– forms are used to form the compound perfect: e meffe (Kerne) / em behe (Gwened) lared ‘I would have said’. The usual practice is for conditionals to be used in both protasis (if) and apodosis (then) clauses. However, in the NE, and possibly more widely, the imperfect is often substituted for the conditional with BE and HAVE in the apodosis, but not the protasis, i.e. the reverse of English and French.

Verbs in the Georgian resultative-evidential perfect tense series (series III) have what is
known as “inverted” marking, both on the arguments (subjects are in the dative; direct
objects in the nominative) and on the verb (indirect object person markers for the subject;
subject person markers for the direct object) in verb classes 1 (transitive) and
3 (unergative intransitive). Class 4 (experiential) verbs have “inverted” marking in all
tense series, whereas class 2 (unaccusative intransitive; passive) verbs have “direct”
marking in all tense series, including perfect tense series III, both on the argument(s)
(subjects are nominative; any indirect objects dative) and on the verb (in perfect tense
series III: subject person markers plus passive participle plus forms of the verb BE). While
such “inversion” is seen as natural for class 4 (affective, experiential) verbs, which have
dative subjects in many languages (cf. il me plait; es gefällt mir; mne nravitsä; momc̣ons; mujhē
pasand hai), it is generally taken to be idiosyncratic in Georgian in the case of the perfect
tenses of verb classes 1 (transitive) and 3 (unergative). However, if I have is seen as
TO.ME-THERE.IS (and this is etymologically the case in, for instance, Breton), the dichotomy
in the marking of the Georgian perfect tenses closely parallels the BE/HAVE perfect
auxiliary split found in a number of Western European languages (including Breton),
where, roughly speaking, BE is used with unaccusative intransitives (and passives) ≈
Georgian class 2, and HAVE with transitive verbs and with unergative intransitives ≈
Georgian classes 1 and 3. The split in the marking of the perfect tenses in Georgian is thus
as natural as, and indeed analogous to, the Western European perfect auxiliary split.

Breton verbal syntax is simultaneously VSO and V-2, or more precisely
[P = predicate syntagm] PSO/XPSO and [T = tense] T-2. “Bare”
presentations begin with a predicate syntagm; “lead-in” presentations
with a non-predicate constituent [X = S/O/ADV/CIRC, etc.], which may be
either thematic or focused. In “bare” presentation, the negative tense
particle ne is sufficient to fill the first position in order to satisfy the T-2
constraint. But in the affirmative, with simple verbs, a dummy auxiliary
“do” arises; with auxiliary structures (copula, existential, compound
tenses), there is AUX-PRED > PRED-AUX inversion
The apersonal conjugation, formally identical with the 3SG,
marking tense, but not person or number, is used before expressed
nominal subjects, and after initial subjects in the affirmative. The
personal conjugation marking tense, person and number represents
the inclusion of post-verbal subject pronouns; it is also used after initial
subjects in the negative (subject agreement).
The impersonal forms in –r and –d constitute a seventh form in
the personal conjugation, referring to some indeterminate human
subject. In Breton these forms are fully active, may not be used with
agentive phrases, and are best translated with French on / English
one, even though there is no corresponding pronoun in Breton.
Impersonal constructions include the existential,
meteorological phenomena, indirect impersonal verbs of the type
“it pleases me”, and the impersonal compound passive dañssed
e≠veż “es wird getanzt”. With none of these constructions is it possible
to reformulate with an initial subject pronoun. A possible analysis is
that what appear to be 3SG verb forms may actually be the
independently required apersonal conjugation, with no person/number
reference, and that these constructions are thus subjectless.

Arabic is generally described as being VSO, with an alternative SVO order. However in verb-initial clauses, there are numerous and regular violations of the canonical VSO order, such as V O S, V-o S (pronominal object), V Pr-O S (preposition and object), V Pr-o S O, V Pr-o O S, and V-o O S. A principle of increasing information salience of post-verbal arguments (given, known information > new information) appears to provide a unitary account of all observable orders, including VSO. Strict SO order is thus called into question for Arabic, and replaced by a strict GN (given-new) order, possibly entailing major typological consequences. Languages traditionally described as VSO or SOV should be revisited to see whether VGN or GNV do not provide a better account of their functioning. Celtic languages appear to be truly VSO rather than VGN, but GNV may be more economical than SOV for Turkish, Tibetan and Hindi/Urdu. It would thus seem desirable to allow for the possibility of G~N, relative information salience, as a primary determinant of the basic word order of some languages.

The hypothesis of a Hamito-Semitic substratum in the Insular Celtic languages elaborated
successively by Morris-Jones, Pokorny and Wagner to explain a number of striking structural
resemblances between Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic is enjoying a revival. While linguists
have generally assumed that the parallels between Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic are to be
explained in terms of Greenbergian typology (all languages of the VSO type), the recent work of
Gensler, and also Jongeling and Vennemann, compels us to revisit the substratum hypothesis.
The purpose of this article is to act as a guide to the main contributions on the question (several
of which are reproduced in this volume), provide a table, arranged by author and language,
showing the principal points of similarity, comment on a number of those points, and sound a
note of caution against what might be called “substratum frenzy”. An extensive bibliography is
provided, with the following sections: “The Insular Celtic / Hamito-Semitic question”, “Celtic –
general”, “Hamito-Semitic – general”, and “Celtic influence on English”.

Abstract The hypothesis of a Hamito-Semitic (or Afro-Asiatic) substratum in the Insular Celtic languages elaborated successively by Morris Jones, Pokorny and Wagner to explain striking structural resemblances between Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic is enjoying a revival. ...

Mood in Breton Steve Hewitt UNESCO 1. Historical and sociolinguistic background Breton, the only Brythonic (Welsh, Cornish, Breton) Celtic language to have preserved the original name, OBr. brethonec, Mod. Br. brezhoneg, is thought to have been brought to Armorica ( ...

1Cette année, nous avons continué l&#x27;examen des parlers vivants, surtout ceux de l&#x27;axe central NE-SO, en nous concentrant sur celui de Centre-Trégor (NE du domaine bretonnant). Nous avons d&#x27;ailleurs bénéficié de la présence de locuteurs natifs d&#x27;autres parlers (Léon [NO], SO ...

Variation in Breton morphology and syntax is less well known than regular phonetic and lexical dialect reflexes. Certain morphemes of the central, innovative NE-SW dialects appear to have spread robustly during the 20th century. Verbal syntax is described using a matrix with three constructions (1) simple verb; (2) auxiliary constructions (perfect tenses, copula, existential); (3) double syntactic/lexical verb (e.g. progressive), each in bare presentation (a) predicate, or lead-in presentations (b) subject, (c) object, adverb, etc., each in affirmative and negative and with pronominal and lexical subjects. Much verbal syntactic variation can be explained by the obsolescence in some areas of certain frames in the matrix, e.g. reluctance to use the RA do construction with lexical subjects, or even, reportedly in parts of Gwened, with verb-included pronominal subjects. Finally, a number of specific constructions are examined which are known to have variants, e.g. me meus xwant mond / DA vond ‘I want to go’, but whose geographical distribution is unclear. With the end of traditional native Breton speech now in sight, it is becoming a matter of urgency to investigate and document such variation.

Breton has a venerable, if increasingly skewed orthographical tradition, so there can be no question of developing a Breton orthography from scratch. Early Modern Breton begins in 1659, when Maunoir introduced the iconic <c’h> against French <ch> and systematically indicated initial consonant mutations. For most of the 19th c., one track continues traditional Early Modern habits, the other innovating and systematizing, leading ultimately to the 1908 KLT (Kerne-Leon-Treger) standardization, which in turn fed into the 1941 Peurunvan (ZH; “fully unified” [with the traditional Gwened, SE]) orthography. The 1955 Orthographe universitaire (OU) “while removing certain inconsistencies, introduces new ones” (Jackson 1967). The 1975 Orthographe interdialectal (ID), aimed at including the best of both ZH and OU while ensuring better coverage of regular dialect correspondences, did not go as far as possible in that direction. At each stage of modern spelling reforms, unfortunate choices have been made, often owing to insufficient comprehension of interdialectal correspondences. At the same time, the implications of the massive shift in users from native speakers to learners have not been taken properly into account. Finally, at no point has there been a real debate on the relative merits of a simple monodialectal standard vs a more complex supradialectal standard.

Breton negation is morphologically quite parallel to French, with a preverbal negative tense particle ne and a post-verbal negative operator ked = French pas. However, in P-(predicate-initial) presentation, two rules of Breton verbal syntax designed to keep the constituent bearing tense out of initial position (tense-second constraint) make affirmative clauses strikingly different from P-presentation negative clauses. For simple verbs in affirmative clauses there is ‘dummy DO creation’. And for auxiliary structures in affirmative clauses, there is ‘Aux-Pred > Pred-Aux inversion’. Furthermore, for historical reasons, in S-(subject-initial) presentation, while there is no subject agreement in affirmative clauses, there is subject agreement in negative clauses.

Breton negation is morphologically quite parallel to French, with a preverbal negative tense particle ne and a post-verbal negative operator ked = French pas. However, in P-(predicate-initial) presentation, two rules of Breton verbal syntax designed to keep the constituent bearing tense out of initial position (tense-second constraint) make affirmative clauses strikingly different from P-presentation negative clauses. For simple verbs in affirmative clauses there is ‘dummy DO creation’. And for auxiliary structures in affirmative clauses, there is ‘Aux-Pred > Pred-Aux inversion’. Furthermore, for historical reasons, in S-(subject-initial) presentation, while there is no subject agreement in affirmative clauses, there is subject agreement in negative clauses. As in French, the negative tense particle ne in Breton is often elided in spontaneous speech, but slightly less frequently (85-90% of the time) than in French (95-98% of the time). But the initial consonant lenition it triggers remains, as does the prefixing of n- to verb forms with an initial vowel (V). Ne-elision means that the strikingly different syntactic constructions become even more important for identifying polarity in Breton.

Breton resources Standard Breton - full of neologisms, usually French phraseology (the reverse of native-like Breton), morphology mainly based on peripheral Leon dialect. Native speakers do not follow this easily (understatement!). Here follows a selection of useful teaching materials for Breton and websites where they may be found and/or links to online materials.

(In language of presentation – 20-min. talks in Breton, English or French) (If you speak in Breton or French and your presentation is selected for inclusion in the special issue of Sprachtheorie und Universalienforschung – STUF – https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/stuf on the typology of Breton edited by Steve Hewitt, you will need to provide a final version in English – journal policy) Name email Title of presentation Text of abstract – 200 words maximum.

Niverenn specîal STUF war ar brezhoneg a vo ssañssed da jikour yezhonourien ha typologed all da gompren penaos e h-a en-dro perzhioù disheñvel ar brezhoneg pezh a sell an typologi. The purpose of the special issue of STUF on Breton is to acquaint other linguists and typologists with various aspects of Breton from a typological point of view. Le but du numéro spécial de STUF sur le breton est de présenter divers aspects du breton aux autres linguistes et typologues d'un point de vue typologique.

All four traditional Georgian verb classes have both transitive and intransitive verbs. So transitivity as a basic category predicts nothing regarding the morphosyntactic behaviour of Georgian verbs. More promising is the relative control/volition of the subject. Ergative case asserts the control/volition of the nominal; dative case (and oblique person-marking) denies the control/volition of the nominal, and nominative case means that control/volition is not salient. There is no ergative person-marking in the Georgian verb. Otherwise, person-marking corresponds closely to the case-array of nominal arguments. Ergative case appears to be expanding in Mingrelian and Laz, two more innovative members of the Kartvelian family. Contrary to received wisdom, this suggests that ergativity may be a relatively recent prehistoric borrowing in Georgian, thanks to contact with more purely NE and NW Caucasian languages.

Verbs in the Georgian resultative-evidential perfect tense series (Series III) have what is known as " inverse " marking, both on the arguments (subjects are in the dative; direct objects in the nominative) and on the verb (indirect object person markers for the subject; subject person-markers for the direct object) in verb Classes 1 (transitive – agentive) and 3 (unergative intransitive – agentive). Class 4 (experiencer, " psych " – affective) verbs have " inverse " marking in all tense series, whereas Class 2 (unaccusative intransitive/passive – patientive) verbs have " regular " marking in all tense series, including perfect tense Series III, both on the argument(s) (subjects are nominative; any indirect objects dative) and on the verb (in perfect tense Series III: subject person markers plus passive participle plus forms of the verb BE). While such " inversion " is seen as natural for Class 4 verbs, which have dative subjects in many languages (cf. French il me plaît; German es gefällt mir; Russian mne nravitsä; Georgian momc̣ ons; Hindi/Urdu mujhē pasand hai), it is generally taken to be idiosyncratic in Georgian in the case of the perfect tenses of agentive verb Classes 1 (transitive) and 3 (unergative). However, if I have is seen as TO.ME-THERE.IS (and this is etymologically the case in, for instance, Breton), the dichotomy in the marking of the Georgian perfect tenses closely parallels the BE/HAVE perfect auxiliary split found in a number of Western European languages (including Breton), where, roughly speaking, BE is used with unaccusative intransitives (and passives)  Georgian Class 2, and HAVE with transitive verbs and with unergative intransitives  Georgian Classes 1 and 3. The split in the marking of the perfect tenses in Georgian is thus as natural as, and indeed analogous to, the Western European perfect auxiliary split. (BEN benefactive; DIR direct (subject) person markers; LC link consonant; LV link vowel; OBL oblique (object) person markers; PP past/passive participle; PV perfective preverb; THS thematic stem)

Why do class 1 and 3 (agentive) verbs in Georgian have indirect case-array and person-marking (subject: dative, oblique person-markers) in the perfect tense series? But class 2 (patientive) verbs regular case-array and person-marking (subject: nominative, direct person-markers)?
All authors treat the indirect case-array and person-marking in the perfect tense series of agentive verbs as idiosyncratic, and provide no functional explanation for it.
Harris (1981) treats the subject of class 2 (patientive) verbs as being an “initial object” – a classic definition of unaccusatives; this prevents an otherwise unmotivated “inversion rule” from applying.
Hewitt (1995) treats class 3 unergatives as being underlying transitive, with a null-object ‒ his glosses contain up to five consecutive Ø symbols.
The conclusion is that case-marking on arguments and person-marking in verbs in Georgian correlates not so much with transitivity as with control/volition.
Georgian ergative case implies assertion of control/volition.
Georgian dative case implies denial of control/volition.
Georgian nominative case implies no particular salience of control/volition.
Georgian nominative/accusative orientation/case-array in perfect series in patientive verbs corresponds closely to Italian BE auxiliary with perfect (in Breton BE).
Georgian dative/nominative orientation/case-array in perfect series in agentive verbs corresponds closely to Italian HAVE auxiliary with perfect (in Breton HAVE = to.me-is).
These observations all serve to underscore the importance of Georgian for theoretical work not only on the unaccusative/unergative distinction, but also, by morphological analogy at least, on split auxiliarity.
Finally, there are more arguments in favour of nominative/accusative alignment in Kartvelian developing into ergative/absolutive alignment than of ergative/absolutive alignment developing into nominative/accusative alignment.

Breton manages the trick of being both VSO (from Insular Celtic) and V2 (from Old French and ultimately Germanic). A more accurate characterization would be (X)(Aux)PSO and T2 (tense-second), where P = predicate; X = any fronted element except predicate, either focused ˈX or scene-setting °X. The three verbal structures are (a) SIMPLE VERB; (b) AUX-PRED (verbal [perfect tenses], adjectival, nominal, existential predicates); and (c) DYN-VP + GRAMMATICAL VERB, including both BE.SIT + progressive dynamic VP and dynamic VP + ACTIVITY-DO. Initial P is "bare presentation"; "lead-in presentations" have initial °X or ˈX (scene-setting or focus). Two adjustment rules ensure that the T2 constraint is observed in affirmative bare presentation PSO: (a) AUXILIARY-RA SUPPORT: neuse1 e M skriv2 Yann [so AFF write.PRS.º Yann] 'so Yann writes'-> skrivañ1 a L ra2 Yann [write.INF AFF do.PRS.º Yann] 'Yann writes', and (b) AUX-PRED-> PRED-AUX INVERSION: neuse1 e M neus2 skrived Yann [so AFF he.has written Yann] 'so Yann has written'-> skrived1 e M neus2 Yann [written AFF he.has Yann] 'Yann has written'. In negative clauses, the negative tense particle ne L may fill the first slot, making such adjustment rules unnecessary: ne1 L skriv2 ked Yann [NEG write.PRS.º not Yann] 'Yann doesn't write'; ne1 L neus2 ked skrived Yann [NEG he.has not written Yann] 'Yann hasn't written'; but ne L also freely admits constituents to its left: Yann1 ne L skriv2 ked [Yann NEG write.PRS.3SG not] 'Yann doesn't write'. 'Conjugated' verbs are seen as the result of POST-VERBAL SUBJECT PRONOUN INCLUSION, and a scenario is proposed to explain the lack of subject agreement in VS and affirmative SV order, but the requirement of subject agreement in negative SV order. Embedded clauses traditionally have strict (Aux)PSO order (the matrix clause is in slot 1, so no adjustment rules are needed to get T to slot 2 in the affirmative), but embedded S(Aux)PO is increasingly possible with factual complements (SVO is required here in Arabic), but not with virtual complements (where VSO is required in Arabic). This is likely to be typological rather than interference from French, as French requires SVO for both.

Arabic is generally described as being VSO, with an alternative SVO order. However in verb-initial clauses, there are numerous and regular violations of the canonical VSO order, such as V O S, V-o S (pronominal object), V Pr-O S (preposition and object), V Pr-o S O, V Pr-o O S, and V-o O S. A principle of increasing information salience of post-verbal arguments (given, known information > new information) appears to provide a unitary account of all observable orders, including regular VSO order. Strict SO order is thus called into question for Arabic, and replaced by a strict GN (given-new) order, possibly entailing major typological consequences. Languages traditionally described as VSO or SOV need to be revisited to see whether VGN or GNV do not provide a better account of their functioning. Celtic languages appear to be truly VSO rather than VGN, but GNV may be more economical than SOV for Turkish, Tibetan and Hindi/Urdu. It would thus seem desirable to allow for the possibility of G~N, relative information salience, as a primary determinant of the basic word order of some languages.

From a peak of over 1 million speakers in 1950, Breton, a severely endangered Brythonic Celtic language in Brittany, northwestern France, now has probably under 200,000 speakers, with numerous semi-speakers and rusty speakers, and approximately 0.2-0.3% literacy (ability to write a simple personal letter) in Breton among native speakers. Practically all natural transmission by native speakers ceased between the 1950s and 1970s, so the great majority of native speakers are now over 60 years old. The language further suffers from an absence of standardization among native speakers (there is considerable dialectal fragmentation; most speakers know only their local dialect). There are three competing orthographies, with the linguistically least appropriate (ZH) accounting for 85% of users, the vast majority of whom are non-native learners. Language activism, confined largely to learners since the 1920s, began to expand significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to the establishment of all-Breton Diwan immersion schools and public Div Yezh and private (state-assisted Catholic) Dihun bilingual schools. However total numbers in these three Breton-language streams come to less than 3% of school-age children in Brittany. The dominant language among learners, both children and adults, is an artificial standard with numerous, and to native speakers, impenetrable neologisms, but strong French phonetics, syntax and phraseology. While no one factor, apart from the lexicon, impedes communication between learners and traditional speakers outright, the cumulative effect is to make intercomprehension laborious, and usually unfeasible in practice. With the exception of 5-10% of learners, most neo-speakers do not readily understand traditional speech. Traditional speakers tend to be ashamed of their language, and reluctant to speak it to those who do not master their own particular variety fluently. Neos, on the other hand, often explain away their lack of facility with native-like Breton by claiming that it is so "degenerate" that it is not worth saving, and that no matter how faulty their own Breton, as they say in Ireland: Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla cliste 'Better to have broken Irish than clever English'. The rather extreme Breton situation, where native Breton speech is now rarely heard in public and is all but inaccessible to learners, raises the question as to how feasible it is for a whole cohort to revitalize a language without intensive contact with native speakers. Part of the answer may lie in redesigning teaching materials to make native-like Breton more readily available to learners, and in tweaking the written standard to allow more faithful reflection of the living dialects.

The hypothesis of a Hamito-Semitic (or Afro-Asiatic) substratum in the Insular Celtic languages elaborated successively by Morris Jones, Pokorny and Wagner to explain striking structural resemblances between Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic is enjoying a revival. Linguists have generally assumed that the parallels between Insular Celtic and Hamito-Semitic are to be explained in terms of Greenbergian typology (all languages of the VSO type). However, recent work by Gensler, and also Jongeling and Vennemann, compels us to revisit the substratum hypothesis. This article presents the main contributions on the question, provides a table showing the principal points of similarity by author and language, briefly comments on each of these points, and, regretting the reluctance of substratalists to consider typological explanations, sounds a note of caution against what might be termed "substratum frenzy". In connection with the recent interpretation of Tartessian inscriptions from the southwest of the Iberian peninsula as an early form of Celtic, a new scenario suggests itself: Phoenician may have exerted substratal influence on Tartessian, which in turn may have fed into the "Milesian" language traditionally said to have brought Q-Celtic from Iberia to Ireland; if this language also spread to Britain, that would explain the presence of "non-Indo-European" traits in Insular Celtic, P-Celtic coming subsequently directly from Gaul having acquired them from the Q-Celtic already present in Britain. Such a scenario would reconcile the two fundamental divisions between Insular Celtic (with "non-Indo-European" traits) and Continental Celtic (without) on the one hand and Q-Celtic and P-Celtic (without on the continent, with in Britain) on the other. =m

Welsh syntactic mutation and Arabic indefinite accusative: Case or configuration?
Welsh marks indefinite direct objects with lenition: Gwelodd Mair dŷ [Sawº Mair house (tŷ)] ‘Mair saw a house’. Welsh also applies “syntactic mutation” in a number of other circumstances: gwelwyd tŷ ar y bryn [was.seenº house on the hill], but with the prepositional phrase interposed: gwelwyd ar y bryn dŷ [was.seenº on the hill house] ‘a house was seen on the hill’.
Formal Arabic marks indefinite direct objects with -an (indefinite accusative): ra’at miryam bait.an [sawºF Miryam house.INDEF.ACC] ‘Miryam saw a house’. “Faulty indefinite accusative” is applied frequently by proficient users of Formal Arabic where there should be indefinite nominative: ru’iya ‘alà t-tall bait.(un) [was.seenºM on the-hill house.(INDEF.NOM)] ‒> ru’iya ‘alà t-tall bait.an [was.seenºM on the-hill house(INDEF.ACC)] ‘a house was seen on the hill’. Every time “faulty indefinite accusative” is found in Arabic, the Welsh equivalent would have “syntactic mutation”. In both cases, the phenomenon seems to be the result of an identical HEAD-TRIGGER-DEPENDENT rule marking the dependent. This rule would account for all cases of syntactic mutation in Welsh, and for both correct and faulty indefinite accusative in Arabic.
Historical evidence suggests that the rule governing indefinite accusative in Arabic has evolved from a semantic, case-based rule to a syntactic one based on simple configuration. If such a case > configuration evolution was possible for Arabic, it could provide a clue to the genesis and evolution of “syntactic mutation” in Welsh, which may also have originally been case-based, but has most likely evolved into a configurational rule. A widely studied rule of Welsh thus helps to explain a persistent, but little studied “faulty” pattern in Formal Arabic, and the likely genesis of that “faulty” rule in Arabic, in turn, may shed light, in this typological exercise, on the origin and development of the Welsh rule.

The similarity of the genitive construct in Celtic and Semitic, Breton dor an ti, Arabic bāb al bait [door the house] “the door of the house” is one of the main planks in the Hamito-Semitic substratum hypothesis for Insular Celtic. However, on both sides, the construction originally involved case-marking, cf. Irish doras an tí [door.NOM the house.GEN], Classical Arabic bāb u l bait i [door NOM.DEF the house GEN.DEF]. The [HEAD [the-DEPENDENT]] structure was thus not initially crucial on either side to identifying the genitive construction, but only became so with the loss of case-marking. An important difference is that Celtic freely attaches adjectives to either term: Breton dor vras an ti bihan [door big the house small] “the big door of the small house”, whereas Semitic must place all adjectives, no matter which term they modify, after the whole construct, which is thus more akin to a nominal compound; Semitic can render phrases such as this unambiguously only by restructuring with a preposition: al bāb al kabīr li l bait aṣ ṣaghīr [the door the big to the house the small]. If the Celtic construct state were really due to a Semitic substratum, one might have expected a similar constraint to apply. Finally, the [HEAD [the-DEPENDENT]] structure is less exotic than sometimes suggested: the English “’s genitive” merely inverts the two main constituents: the king’s house [[the-DEPENDENT.GEN] HEAD], with case-marking in Standard English, but without case-marking in the evolved form of English that is Jamaican Creole: di king hoos [[the-DEPENDENT] HEAD].

Why do class 1 and 3 (agentive) verbs in Georgian have indirect case-array and person-marking (subject: dative, oblique person-markers; direct object: nominative, direct person-markers) in the perfect tense series? But class 2 (patientive) verbs regular case-array and person-marking (subject: nominative, direct person-markers;)?
• All authors treat the indirect case-array and person-marking in the perfect tense series of agentive verbs as idiosyncratic, and provide no functional explanation for it.
• Conclusion is that Georgian verbs are divided into three main classes: Agentive (case-shifting between subject: Nom (present-future) / Erg (aorist) / Dat (perfect);
Patientive: Nom in all tense series;
Affective: Dat in all tense series.
Erg case implies assertion of control/volition.
Dat case implies denial of control/volition.
Nom case implies no particular salience of control/volition.

The interpretation of “Tartessian”, the SW Iberian inscriptions, by John Koch as the earliest form of Celtic raises the possibility that nearby Phoenician, spoken in Phoenician trading posts in Iberia, such as Gadir (modern Cádiz), might have been the oft-mooted Hamito-Semitic substrate said to account for a number of non-Indo-European traits found in Insular Celtic. However, Tartessian-as-Celtic has not gained traction among Celticists. Furthermore, apart from the difficulty of explaining how a Semiticized Celtic Tartessian might have been transmitted from SW Iberia to Ireland and/or Britain, bypassing the rest of Iberia and Gaul, where none such substratal effects have ever been noted, it is unlikely that economically dominant Phoenician would ever have acted as a substrate to “Tartessian”, which would be better named Cunetian, as it may not be connected with the flourishing culture of Tartessos (cf. the Biblical “ships of Tarshish”). Finally, there are a number of problems and questions concerning the adaptation of the Phoenician script to the language of the SW inscriptions.

From a peak of over 1 million speakers in 1950, Breton, a severely endangered Brythonic Celtic language in Brittany, northwestern France, now has probably under 200,000 speakers, with numerous semi-speakers and rusty speakers, and approximately 0.2-0.3% literacy (ability to write a simple personal letter) in Breton among native speakers. Practically all natural transmission by native speakers ceased between the 1950s and 1970s, so the great majority of native speakers are now over 60 years old. The language further suffers from an absence of standardization among native speakers (there is considerable dialectal fragmentation; most speakers know only their local dialect). There are three competing orthographies, with the linguistically least appropriate (ZH) accounting for 85% of users, the vast majority of whom are non-native learners. Language activism, confined largely to learners since the 1920s, began to expand significantly in the 1970s and 1980s, leading to the establishment of all-Breton Diwan immersion schools and public Div Yezh and private (state-assisted Catholic) Dihun bilingual schools. However total numbers in these three Breton-language streams come to less than 3% of school-age children in Brittany. The dominant language among learners, both children and adults, is an artificial standard with numerous, and to native speakers, impenetrable neologisms, but strong French phonetics, syntax and phraseology. While no one factor, apart from the lexicon, impedes communication between learners and traditional speakers outright, the cumulative effect is to make intercomprehension laborious, and usually unfeasible in practice. With the exception of 5-10% of learners, most neo-speakers do not readily understand traditional speech. Traditional speakers tend to be ashamed of their language, and reluctant to speak it to those who do not master their own particular variety fluently. Neos, on the other hand, often explain away their lack of facility with native-like Breton by claiming that it is so " degenerate " that it is not worth saving, and that no matter how faulty their own Breton, as they say in Ireland: Is fearr Gaeilge bhriste ná Béarla cliste 'Better to have broken Irish than clever English'. The rather extreme Breton situation, where native Breton speech is now rarely heard in public and is all but inaccessible to learners, raises the question as to how feasible it is for a whole cohort to revitalize a language without intensive contact with native speakers. Part of the answer may lie in redesigning teaching materials to make native-like Breton more readily available to learners, and in tweaking the written standard to allow more faithful reflection of the living dialects.