# Verb-doubling in Basque and Breton

Mélanie Jouitteau, Arantzazu Elordieta

► To cite this version:

Mélanie Jouitteau, Arantzazu Elordieta. Verb-doubling in Basque and Breton. Doctoral. Donostia (San Sebastian), Spain. 2010. [hal-04993248](https://hal.science/hal-04993248v1)

HAL Id: hal-04993248

https://hal.science/hal-04993248v1

Submitted on 16 Mar 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
# Verb-doubling in Basque and Breton

Arantzazu Elordieta, UPV/EHU

arantzazu.elordieta@ehu.es

Mélanie Jouitteau, UMR 7110, CNRS/LLF

melaniejouitteau@gmail.com

## 1. Obligatory exponence, LEIT effects and doubling

(1) *Late Expletive Insertion Trigger* Jouitteau (forthcoming a,b)
LEIT is an operation that bans tense-first orders.
(Hanging topics and scene setting adverbs being out of the clause)

(2) LEIT effects operate at a post-syntactic level, in pre-PF, postsyntactic morphology.

(3) *Leit effects are obligatory when last resort:* The typology of LEIT effects includes :

a. Merge of an expletive (head or XP)

b. Attraction of the closest postverbal element into the preverbal position.

c. creation an expletive by excorporation.

(4) Empirical domain: LEIT is not universal, but is active in at least :
Welsh, Gungbe and V2 languages in general, including Breton and Icelandic, and, as
propose here, in Basque.

Following Jouitteau (2007), Merge of C expletive is crosslinguistically illustrated in Welsh and Breton.

(5) **Fe/Mi** glywes i'r cloc.
**C** heard-1.SG. the clock
'I've heard the clock'.

*Welsh*, Jouitteau (2007)

(6) **R**-oedd Pwyll yn arglwyd
**C**-was Pwyll asp. Lord
‘Pwyll was lord’.

*Welsh*

(7) a. **Emañ Maijo el levraoueg.**
**C**-is Maijo in-the library
‘Marijo is in the library.’

*Standard Breton*

b. **E oar** o hadañ an ed.
**C** [were+ IMP.] at plant-INF. the wheat.
‘We were planting the wheat’.

c. **Han** me da laret deoc’h...
**C**-go.1.SG. I to tell to-you
‘I’m going to tell you...’
... and attraction of the closest postverbal element into the preverbal position is illustrated in Icelandic and Breton (Holmberg 2000, 2005, Jouitteau 2005, 2007).

(8) a. Ef það er gengið eftir Laugaveginum...
if EXPL is walked along the-Laugavegur

b. Ef gengið er eftir Laugaveginum...
if walked is along the-Laugavegur

'If one walks along Laugavegur...' *Icelandic*, Holmerg (2005)

(9) a. Bez' he doa kuzhet Manon ar c' hazh.
EXPL had.3SGF hidden Manon the cat

b. Kuzhet he doa Manon ar c' hazh
hidden had.3SGF Manon the cat

'Manon had hidden the cat.' *Breton*

In this talk, we will investigate the third type of LEIT effect: creation of the preverbal ‘filler’ by excorporation out from the tensed head itself.

In both Basque and Breton, when an inflected head is present in the left periphery of the clause, LEIT effects arise. We will propose that excorporation is illustrated in Basque and Breton by verb-doubling structures (9)a. In Breton, an alternative is to spell-out the lower copy with ‘do’ support (9)b.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

We hope to show that all other differences in the paradigms of verb-doubling follow from language particular properties.

Plan for each language:

A. show that LEIT is active, and define where in the structure

B. define the typology of LEIT satisfiers

C. show that V-doubling is mutually exclusive with any of the other satisfiers

D. check predictions

## 2. Basque

### 2.1. LEIT in Basque and synthetic Vs

In Biskayan Basque, neutral word order is SOV(Aux). Basque is a pro-drop language but null subjects and objects do not lead to linear inflected verb-first orders, that the language seems to avoid. Verb-first orders are banned (11) or restricted to some presumable lexically conventionalised ellipsis (12). This ban on verb-first is insensitive to the very high left periphery of the clause, as illustrated here with a hanging topic in (13) (see, a.o. Euskaltzaindia 1985, Ortiz de Urbina 1989, 1994, Etxepare & Ortiz de Urbina 2003).
(11) *dabil.
walk.3SG.ABS.PRES

Biscayan, A.Elordieta

(12) (?ustean) **nago** gure taldeak galdu egingo duela
be.1SG.ABS.PRES our team loose egin-FUT AUX
'I think that our team will LOSE.'
This may come from literally: 'I am in the thought that...'

(13) *Ni, **nabil.**
I walk. 1SG.ABS.PRES
‘As for me, I walk.’

→ **Hypothesis 1:** LEIT in Basque is active only when inflected V raises to the left periphery as V1.

**3 predictions to hypothesis 1:**

1. Only inflected verbs that can raise ever show LEIT effects

Synthetic verbs are idiosyncratic in Basque: a restricted set of Vs which have a
morphological spell-out inflected agreement.

Euskaltzaindia (1977) and de Rijk (2008) cite 25 synthetic Vs with relatively regular usage, both transitives and intransitives.

Doubling verbs are a subset:

(14) **Juen doie, ala etorri dator, ba?** *Mallabia, Bizkaia, Zuazo (1998:207)*
go.INF go or come.INF come then
'Well, is he leaving (right now) or is he coming?'

(15) egon 'être, rester', joan 'go', etorri 'come', jakin 'to know', ibili 'walk', eduki 'posséder, avoir', eroan 'take', ekarri 'bring, carry'.
(Azkue 1923, Altube 1929, Arejita 1980, Euskaltzaindia 1985, Ortiz de Urbina 1989, Osa 1990, Zuazo 1998, 2003, 2008, Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003)

2. Periphrastic constructions consisting of non-finite V-Aux can appear linearly first, since inflected Aux is not V1

(16) **Ibili naiz** paraje horie-tatik.
walk.ASP 1SGABS.PRES place those-in
‘I HAVE walked around those places.’

3. LEIT effects in Basque appear only in environments where a C head has attracted the inflected head (event focalization and polarity focus).

In event *focalisation/polarity foc* contexts, the synthetic V moves to Foc, to license [+FOC] (eventually passing by Σ) – LEIT has to be satisfied.
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

**Hypothesis 2:** Verb doubling is a LEIT last resort strategy proceeding by lexical excorporation. Both copies are pronounced.

**Predictions of hypothesis 2:**

In the dialect where doubling arises (certain Western dialects, such as Urduliz and Arratia dialects), doubling is restricted to LEIT environments (verb raising into the left-periphery).

► **Information packaging of VV**

(Hualde & Ortiz de Urbina 2003:355, 476): VV carries two main readings: *event focalization* and *verum focus*.

new information (= non-topic):

(17) SPEAKER A: zer egiten duzu hor atean?
(What are you doing there, at the door ?)

SPEAKER B: **etorri nator.**
come I.come
'I'm coming.'

Elordieta

Lexical contrastive meaning:

(18) SPEAKER A: ardoa utzi duzu? (Have you left the wine?)

SPEAKER B: ez, **ekarri dakart**
No, bring I.bring
'No, I'm bringing it.'

Elordieta

non-contrastive event focalisation :

(19) SPEAKER A: herri honetan euri asko egiten du, hortaz, agian jendea ez da animatuko
*In this country it rains a lot, so maybe people won't go out.*

SPEAKER B: euri zein aterri **yon gos**
 rain or clear go we.go

‘Whether it rains or it clears, we WILL GO.’

(Urduliz)

Polar emphasis in an adversative context

(20) Orasiño itten bere **yakin dakitzu** faltzo horrek.
pray **do-ASP** too know he-knows-to.you false that
‘That fake (guy) even knows to pray’

(Urduliz)

(21) Kostaten dana kostaten dala **ekarri dakargu** te Kittu.
Cost AUX-RELAT Cost AUX-C bring we-bring and that’s it
‘whatever it costs, we will bring it, and end of the story.’

(Urduliz)

Polar emphasis without adversative context

(22) zer egiten duzu hor atean, **etorri zatoz** ala **joan zoaz**?
what do aux there door-at, come come.you or go go.you
‘What are you doing there, at the door? Are you coming or leaving?’

► **Syntactic properties of VV**

*Prediction:* If VV involves excorporation, it has Head-movement properties (cf. also Harbour 2008 for Haitian Creole, Aboh & Dyakanova 2009 for Gungbe, Biberauer 2009 for some V-doubling in Afrikaans).

- The infinitive is not inside a larger constituent, not at least when it is preposed:

(23) Ospitalera **joan noa**.
hospital-to go go-I
* ‘I’m GOING TO THE HOSPITAL’
‘I’M GOING to the hospital’, with V-focus (and a topicalized PP)

*Focus-T adjacency requirement*

- VFOC-doubling show the same syntactic restrictions as regular focalised XPs (left adjacency to an inflected head). But is shows a further restriction: it is *extra local*, hence long-fronting is ruled out (26), in contrast to regular XP foci. → *head-movement*.

(24) a. [ Jonek [ Mirenek ura edan duela ]CP esan du ]F *Out of the blue*
Jon Miren water drink AUX.C say AUX
‘[Jon said that Miren drank water]F’

b. [MIRENEK]F **esan du** Jonek [t edan duela ura] *Focalized embedded subject*
Miren say AUX Jon drink AUX.C water
‘Jon said that [Miren]F drank water.’

(25)a. [ZU-REKIN] **ezkonduko da** nire alaba.
you-with marry.FUT AUX my daughter
‘My daughter will marry YOU.’
b. *ZUREKIN nire alaba **ezkonduko da**. (with focus on the object)

VV:

(26) ??[JOANᵢ esaten dute [doa-laᵢ ]] gone.INF say.PROG AUX.3PL.ERG-3SG.ABS goes.3SG.ABS-C 'They said that s/he went away.' Elordieta

► VV is available in embedded contexts:

(27) Bizia, **ibilli dabillan** itzala baño ez da. life walk walks.that shadow but not is 'Life is not but a walking shadow.' Osa (1990:175) Literally: '... a shadows that walks (and walks)'

(28) Eztakitt **joan sixoian** ala **etorri etorren**. not-knowinfl go went-C or come came-C 'I don't know if (s)he LEFT or CAME' Osa (1990:175)

## VV as a LEIT satisfier : last resort properties

*Prediction:* If VV involves excorporation, it should appear exactly in the environments of LEIT last resort satisfaction.

(i) VFOC-doubling will not occur if another element is focused, and hence, preverbal

(29) Ospitalera **joan noa**. hospital-to go go-I 'I'm GOING to the hospital.' * 'I'm going to the hospital' with V-focus (and a topicalized PP)

(30) *EGIA jakin dakit truth know I.know 'I know THE TRUTH'

(ii) it will be incompatible with another LEIT-satisfier

Three elements are LEIT satisfiers in LEIT environments:

(i) Neg, which is located between FocP and TP,

(ii) the particle *ba*-, which we assume is a pure expletive

(iii) the doubling V

(31) a. Kostaten dana kostaten dala **ekarri (*ba)dakargu** te Kittu. cost AUX-RELAT cost AUX-C bring BA we-bring and that's it 'Whatever it costs, we will bring it, and end of the story.' (Urduliz)

b. **Ekarri badakar** liburua berarekin. bring BA brings the.book with him (doubling with a hanging topic) '(as for bringing), He DOES bring the book with him.'
(32) a. **ez dakar** liburua berarekin.
   NEG brings the.book with him
   'He doesn't bring the book with him.'
   (wide focus sentence)

b. **badakar** liburua berarekin.
BA brings the.book with him
'He DOES bring the book with him.'

c. **ekarri dakar** liburua berarekin.
   bring brings the.book with him
   'He BRINGS/IS BRINGING the book with him.'

*(negation under test)*

## 2.2. *V-FOC egin (do) support*<fnref n="1" />

For the same discourse purposes than focalized V-doubling, and with verbs that have no inflectional paradigms, a dummy auxiliary *egin* is inserted<fnref n="2" />.

(33) Sindikatuek **eutsi egin-go** diote biharko grebari.
Treade-unionists keep do-ASP aux tomorrow's strike
'Trade unionists will KEEP to the call for tomorrow's strike.' (Berria, 2010-06-10)

(34) Euri zein aterri **joan egin-go** gara.
rain or clear go do-ASP AUX
'Whether it rains or it clears, we WILL GO.'
(Elordieta)

Fronting can be long distance:

(35) **erosi**; esan didate [ti **egin** du-ela jauregi hori]
buy say AUX do AUX-C palace that
'I've been told that (s)he has BOUGHT that palace'

V<sup>foc</sup>-egin is sensitive to island effects, such as the Complex NP Island.

(36) \* *Erosi*; entzun dut [Jonek 200 m2ko etxea **egin**; du-en zurrumurrua]
buy hear AUX Jon 200 m2-of house do AUX-COMP rumour
'I heard that Jon has BOUGHT a house of 200 m2'

→ *Hypothesis 1:* V<sup>foc</sup>-egin fronting involves (remnant) VP-movement, as opposed to head-movement (see Haddican 2007). O moves out of VP prior to VP-mov to Foc.

► *egin (do)* is the spellout of the lower copy of V which must license [ASP] features (Elordieta 2010).

<footnote n="1">¹ Eastern dialects lack dummy *egin* in contexts of focalization and topicalization.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² See references in Azkue 1923-25, Altube 1929, Arejita 1980, Euskaltzaindia 1985:46, Euskaltzaindia 1987, Ortiz de Urbina 1989, Osa 1990, Hualde and Ortiz de Urbina 2003:476). And see Haddican (2007) and Elordieta (2010) for an analysis of *egin* 'do support'. The analysis presented here modifies the proposal in Elordieta (2010).</footnote>
This is the structure we propose for VFOC-EGIN:

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

*Prediction: [VP OV] fronting should in principle be available.*

✓ in central dialects (but not in western) preverbal VP-focus interpretation is available, and more generally, postverbal VP-focus (cf. Haddican 2007):

(38) % **[Ogia jan] egin** zuen.
    bread eat **do** AUX
    ‘She ATE THE BREAD.’
Rebuschi (1983)

(39) órrek **eitten** dabe [sorua landu]/[landu]
Those do aux field work /work
‘Those work on the field’ (lit. ‘those do working on the field’)

Crucially, though, no ‘postverbal’ or ‘inverted’ V-doubling is available, despite the fact that there is an XP shielding the inflected verbal form:

(40) \*nik **dakit jakin** hori
I I-know know that
‘I KNOW that’

→ VV does not involve VP-movement, but V-movement.

→ *Hypothesis 2:* apart from VP-FOC-EGIN, similarly to Breton, Basque also has V-FOC-EGIN, with excorporation of V and dummy *egin* as the morphological inflected spellout of the lower copy.

→ analytic constructions with *do* via excorporation are not available in Basque, because *egin* has no inflected spell-out, unlike what occurs in Breton.

→ In Basque LEIT effects only show up in VV, not in VP-FOC-EGIN constructions.
## 2.3. Another LEIT satisfier: Ba

The use of *ba* is not common and uniform across Basque dialects. We concentrate on Western dialects that do show VFOC-doubling.

### Syntactic distribution and information packaging

An obligatory *ba* precedes an inflected verb form in *yes/no* questions, in polarity-focus sentences, and in existential or presentational sentences, all of which involve V-fronting (cf. Etxepare & Ortiz de Urbina 2003).

(41)* **(Ba)zatoz** gurera afaltzen?
*ba-come.you to ours to have dinner*
'Are you coming to our place to have dinner?' *yes/no question*

(42) ***(Ba)zatoz** gurera afaltzen, ezta?
*ba- come.you to ours to have dinner tag*
'You ARE coming to our place for dinner, right?' *polarity focus*

(43) ***(Ba)dagoz** ezkondu nahi ez dabe-n pertsonak.
*ba-stay* marry want NEG AUX-C people
‘there are people who do not want to marry’ Elordieta

(44) Liburuak, ***(ba)daramazkit** eskolara.
*the books ba.take.them school.to*
‘As for the books, I AM bringing them to school.’ Elordieta

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

### Hypothesis: ba as a LEIT satisfier

*► Ba-* recalls an expletive preventing verb-first orders.

*► Predictions: Ba* is in mutually exclusive distribution with other preverbal elements:

*→ * with Neg

*→ * with FOC-V doubling (a doubling with *ba* gets obligatory topic reading),

*→ * with a preverbal non-topic XP. Topics are higher in the structure, above the ‘glass ceiling’ above which LEIT is inactive (in the sense of Jouitteau 2009).

*► The above examples suggest that V has raised to the left periphery, either to Force (Yes/No Q) or to SigmaP/PolP. By virtue of resulting in V1, LEIT is activated and *ba* is inserted.

*► Against a potential analysis of ‘ba’ as a contrastive assertive particle:*

‘Ba’ is usually analysed as an alternate to *bai*, a sigma contrastive positive counterpart of negation (see Altube 1929, Arejita 1980, Laka 1990, Osa 1990).

However if so, they should behave similarly, but only the assertive particle *bai* is licit with an auxiliary. If *ba* and *bai* were one and the same, we would expect them to pattern together, but only *ba* is restricted to lexical synthetic verbs.

(45) **baidakar** / **badakar** agindu diozun liburua.
*yes-brings/ ba-brings order AUX-C book*
‘(S)he is bringing the book you ordered her’
(46) **baidot** / **\*badot** ikusi zure ama.
yes-AUX ba-AUX see your mum
'I HAVE seen your mum.'

Elordieta

We stand on the hypothesis that *ba* is merely a LEIT satisfier.

## 2.4. VV topicalization and V-top-.....egin

Basque has another V-doubling construction with synthetic and analytic Vs, but, unlike VFOCV, there can be intervening material:

(47) **Ekarri** (,) bihar **ekarriko** duela agindu dit **Topic reading**
bring tomorrow bring.asp aux-C promise aux
‘As for bringing, s/he promised that she will bring it TOMORROW’

(48) **Jakin**, **Jonek daki**
to.know Jon know.3SG
‘(as for knowing), JOHN knows it.’

Egin- support arises when V is topicalized. However, V-topicalization does not show island effects:

(49) ?**Erosi**, Jonek [200 m2ko etxea **erosi** du-en zurrumurrua] entzun dut
buy Jon 200 m2-of house buy AUX-COMP rumour hear AUX
‘As for buying, I heard the rumour that Jon has bought a house of 200 m2’

as opposed to *V-foc-egin*:

(50) **\*erosi**; entzun dut [Jonek 200 m2ko etxea egin; du-en zurrumurrua]
buy hear AUX Jon 200 m2-of house buy AUX-COMP rumour
‘It is BUYING that I heard the rumour that Jon has done/bought a house of 200m2’

→ **Hypothesis:** V-topicalization does not involve V-movement; the topicalized element is base-generated at the left periphery.

→ The grammar allows for 2 strategies: VTOP-V is the result of pronouncing both the VTOP and the associated V, whereas VTOP-EGIN is the result of pronouncing the associated V by the proverbial form *egin*.

# 3. Breton

Breton also shows extensive LEIT effects, and allows for excorporation.

## Differences between Basque and Breton:

**Major:**

All verbs raise in CP (into a Fin head, leading to VSO orders)

> Breton excorporation is not restricted to verb-raising to FOC (VV is).

All verbs have a spell out for inflection
> uniform V movement to Fin (no idiosyncrasy effect on verb-raising).

> V is often the higher element at the end of the derivation> LEIT effects

Negation is a C head in the low CP area (it triggers that-trace effects).

> as such, it will automatically saturate LEIT.

Embedded C heads are left-adjacent to the inflected verb: they are LEIT satisfiers

> V-V and V-do are restricted to matrix sentences.

**Minor:**

Breton does not have VV in topicalization structures.

Plausibly for Case reasons, evacuation of the object is not an option in the VP. No
remnant V movement is available (it makes it easier to test Vfronting vs. VP fronting)

**Resulting properties of excorporation in Breton:**

(51) *excorporation properties* Jouitteau (forthcoming b)

i. restriction to LEIT environments

ii. last resort > out when LEIT I saturated

iii. excorporation can be neutral in terms of information packaging.

iv. verbal movement is ultra local > strict adjacency requirement.

(i): No case of excorporation in infinitives, or imperatives ever arise.
Excorporation is always to the left, giving rise to [VINF-T] orders. ([*T-VINF])

(ii): Out in embedded sentences
Out with (non topic) preverbal XPs be they subject or object
Out with negation (the C head saturates LEIT)
Out with a merged expletive

(52) \*Gortoz a ran ma [ **gouzout** ‘**ouife/rafe** e anv].
to.wait R DO C know know.2SG/DO. .2SG his name
‘I am waiting for him to know his name.’

(53) ar martolod **koll** a **reas** _ e gasketenn
DET sailor lose R did.3SG his cap
\*‘The sailor did lose/lost his cap.’ (without hanging topic reading)

(54) \*e gasketenn **koll** a **reas** ar martolod _
his cap lose R did.3SG DET sailor
‘The sailor did lose/lost his cap.’ (without hanging topic reading)

(55) \* **Koll** ne **reas** ket ar martolod _ e gasketenn.
lose NEG did.3SG NEG DET sailor his cap
‘The sailor didn’t lose his cap.’

(56) \* *Bez koll a reas* ar martolod _ e gasketenn.
EXPL lose R did.3SG DET sailor his cap
‘The sailor did lose/lost his cap.’
(iii) excorporation is a neutral way of satisfying LEIT with *do*.

VV orders are more restricted than V-*do*:

► All verbal heads can excorporate, but only an idiosyncratic subset can have both copies spelled-out.

► Verb doubling in Breton is restricted to an idiosyncratic list of verbs
VV are avoided in all-focus sentences, and appear consistently with verbal focalisation
and polarity focus. V-*do* (excorporation with default spell-out of the lower copy)
seems always possible as a LEIT satisfaction last resort.

**Idiosyncrasy:**

Verbs that can double are: *ober*, ‘do’, *bezañ*, ‘be’, *rankout*, ‘must’, *dleout*, ‘must’, *gallout*, ‘can’, *dont*, ‘come’, *mont* ‘go’, *gouzout*, ‘know’ and *kerzhout*, ‘walk’, *redek*, ‘run’, *lenn* ‘read’.

(iv): Long distance is out: the verbal head can not move a long distance and is saturated by the embedded C head anyway:

(57) *gouzout a gredan e ouzez/rez* c’hoazh e anv.
know R know.1SG R know.2SG/DO. .2SG again his name
‘I think you still know his name.’

4. Conclusion & Discussion

We have identified a same excorporation operation leading to V-doubling in both Basque and Breton, and reduced their language particular distribution to language particular rules independently needed.

LEIT seems active in Basque like in Breton when the inflected head reaches the left periphery of the clause – in both languages can excorporation be a last resort strategy for LEIT satisfaction, in mutually exclusive distribution with *ba* or *bez* expletive insertion.

LEIT is not crosslinguistically attached to the CP area.

In Gungbe, obligatory exponence seems to be at the left-periphery of an aspectual structure
(Jouitteau forthcoming a.):

(58) Àsíbá tò [àxì mè yì]‘. Gungbe, Aboh (2005:157)
Asiba PROG market in go-NR
‘Asiba is going to the market.’

(59) Àsíbá tò [dédé zòn]‘. Asiba PROG slowly walk.PRT ‘Asiba is walking slowly.’

(60) Été wè à tò [Kòfi kplón]n’? Gungbe, Aboh (2009:12)
what FOC 2SG PROG Kofi teach. PRT
‘What are you teaching Kofi?’

(61) a. Été wè Àsíbá wá [twh ḫùqù] gbé? Gungbe, Aboh (2009:14-15)
What FOC Asiba come eat.eat PRT
‘What did Asiba come to eat (it)?’
b. Kòfí ná nò tò [ ḍùḍù-ì ] `.
Kofi FUT HAB PROG eat.eat-3SG NR
‘Kofi will be habitually eating it.’

Gungbe, Aboh (2005:158)

(62) Kòfí ná nò tò [ ná ḍù-ì ] `.
Kofi FUT HAB PROG PROSP eat-3SG NR
‘Kofi will be habitually about to eat it.’

Gungbe, Aboh (2005:158)

*Surprising result:*

Idiosyncrasy of V-doubling turn out to follow from completely different mechanisms in Basque and Breton.

*Remaining questions:* why is it that only the non-inflected verb excorporates (not any other suffix – no clitic ever)? At what level of grammar is this excorporation operated?

Comments welcome: *melaniejouitteau@gmail.com*
*arantzazu.elordieta@ehu.es*

**References**

Aboh, E. 2005. ‘Object-shift, verb-movement and verb reduplication’, G. Cinque & R.S. Kayne (eds.), *The Oxford Handbook in Comparative Syntax*, chapter 4.

Aboh, E. 2009. ‘Clause structure and verb series’, Linguistic Inquiry 40:1, 1-33.

Aboh, E.O., M. Dyakonova, 2009. ‘Predicate doubling and parallel chains’. *Lingua* 119:7, 1035-1065.

Altube, S. 1929. *Erderismos*. Bermeo [2. ed, Bilbao, 1975].

Arejita, A. 1980. ‘Aditzaren galdegai funtzinoaz’ [*On the function of verb focus*], *Euskera XXV*, 355-369. Bilbao: Euskaltzaindia.

Azkue, R. M. 1923. *Morfología Vasca*. II. Edit. La Gran Enciclopedia Vasca. § 760, 527.

Biberauer, T. 2009. ‘The Peculiarity of Afrikaans Predicate-Doubling: A Comparative Perspective’. Talk presented at ‘The Grammar of Reiteration’, Univ. of Amsterdam, November 2009.

Elordieta, A., 2010, ‘Aditzaren bikoizketa foku-topikoa denean’ [Verb doubling when V is topic and focus], in P. Albizu, R. Etxepare & B. Fernández (eds.), *Euskara eta euskarak: aldakortasun sintaktikoa aztergai* [Basque: analyzing syntactic variation]. *Supplements of ASJU* LII, Bilbo: UPV-EHU.

Elordieta, A., 2002, ‘On the (im)possibility of prosodic focus marking in embedded contexts in Northern Bizkaian Basque’, in X. Artiagoitia, P. Goenaga & J.A. Lakarra (eds.), *Erramu boneta: Festschrift for Rudolf P.G. de Rijk*, supplements of ASJU XLIV, Donostia: Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia & UPV-EHU, 153-178.

Elordieta, A., 2001, *Verb movement and constituent permutation in Basque*, HIL/Leiden University, LOT Dissertation Series, 47.

Etxepare, R. eta J. Ortiz de Urbina. 2003. “Focalization”. J. I. Hualde & J. Ortiz de Urbina (arg.) *A Grammar of Basque*. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 460-516.

Euskaltzaindia. 1985. *Euskal Gramatika*. Lehen Urratsak-I. Bilbo: Euskaltzaindia.

Euskaltzaindia. 1977. ‘Aditz sintetikoa’ [Synthetic verbs], *Euskera* XXII.2, 785-850.

Haddican, B. 2007. ‘On egin: do-support and verbal focus in Central and Western Basque’. *Natural Language and Linguistic Theory* 25:4, 735-764.

Harbour, D. 2008. “Klivaj predika, or predicate clefts in Haitian”. *Lingua* 118, 853-871.
Holmberg, A. 2000. 'Scandinavian Stylistic Fronting: How any category can become an Expletive', In *Linguistic Inquiry* 31:3, 445-483.

Holmberg, Anders. 2005. 'Stylistic Fronting', In H. van Riemsdijk and M. Everaert (eds.), *The Syntactic Companion*. Oxford: Blackwell.

Jouitteau, M. 2009. 'A typology of V2 with regard to second position phenomena, an introduction to the V1/V2 volume', *Jouitteau (éd.), Verb-First, Verb-Second*, Lingua, Elsevier. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2008.11.011

Jouitteau, M. forthcoming a. 'Verb second as morphological obligatory exponence: Breton verbal reiteration', Zribi-Hertz and Aboh (éds.) *Volume on Creole languages*, Benjamins.

Jouitteau, M. forthcoming b. 'Post-syntactic excorporation in realizational morphology: Evidence from Breton', Carnie and al. (éds.), *Volume on Celtic languages*.

Laka, I. 1990. *On the Nature of Functional Categories and Projections*. MIT PhD.

Ortiz de Urbina, J. 1989. *Parameters in the Grammar of Basque*, Dordrecht: Foris.

Ortiz de Urbina, J. 1994. "Verb initial patterns in Basque and Breton". *Lingua*, 125-153.

Ortiz de Urbina, J. 1995. "Residual Verb Second and Verb First in Basque". In K. Kiss (arg.) *Discourse configurational languages*, 99-121.

Ortiz de Urbina, J. 1999. "Force Phrases, Focus Phrases and Left Heads in Basque", in J. Franco & A. Landa (eds.) *Grammatical Analysis of Romance and Basque*, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 179-194.

Osa, E. 1990, *Euskararen hitzordena komunizazio zereginaren arauera* [Word order in Basque from the point of view of communication tasks]. Leioa: Universitad del Pais Vasco/ Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea.

Oyharçabal, B. 1984. "Ba- baiezkoa aurrizkia" [Affirmative prefix ba-]. *Euskera* XXIX, 351-371.

Rebuschi, G. 1983. "A Note on Focalization in Basque". *ASJU* 4:2, 29-42. [Reprinted in Rebuschi, G. (1997) *Essais de linguistique basque*. *ASJU XXXV*, EHU-Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia, Donostia, 31-41.]

Rijk, R.P. de. 2008. *Standard Basque. A progressive grammar*. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.

Zuazo, K. 1998. "Euskalkiak gaur" [Basque dialects today]. *Fontes Linguae Vasconum* 30. 191-233.

Zuazo, K. 2003. *Euskalkiak. Herriaren lekukoak* [Basque dialects. Witnesses of people]. Donostia: Elkar.

Zuazo, K. 2008. *Euskalkiak. Euskararen dialektoak* [Basque dialects. The dialects of Basque] Donostia: Elkar.

== references of the previous talk: ==

(EOLSS) 6.20B.10.3: *Contribution to the UNESCO encyclopedia of life support systems*

Salminen, Tapini. 2009. Classification of the Uralic (Finno-Ugrian) languages, with present numbers of speakers and areas of distribution (last updated 2 July 2009) http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/fu.html based on:

N. A. Baskakov: *Tjurkskie jazyki*. Moskva 1960.

Jazyki mira: ural'skie jazyki. Moskva 1993.

*Lexicon der Romanistischen Linguistik*. Tübingen 1989.

List of European Minority languages: http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/saoghal/mion-chanain/en/

Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009. *Ethnologue: Languages of the World*, Sixteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL

International. Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com/

Multitree (Linguistlist), *A Digital Library of Language Relationships*, http://multitree.org/search

Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien

http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/karten/euro/europam.htm

Unesco Red Book on Endangered Languages

http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/europe_report.html

Rezac, 2006. 'Ergative Displacement: Cyclic expansion of search-space', chapter 2 Basque manuscript,

http://members.multimania.co.uk/loargann/