I now look at prepositional wh-constructions, based on Willis (2000) and Borsley et al. (2007). The default pattern in Literary Welsh is resumption in relative clauses and pied- piping in wh-questions. Colloquial Welsh, however, allows stranding of non-inflected prepositions in both relatives and wh-questions. We will first consider the case in Literary Welsh, and then turn to Colloquial Welsh.
In prepositional relatives, a preposition sits in (near) clause-final position, and there is obligatory agreement between a preposition and the antecedent of its complement in Literary Welsh. In (65), the preposition i ‘to’ occurs in the third-person feminine singular form iddi to agree with the antecedent y fenyw ‘the woman’. The null complementizer øS triggers soft mutation on the following verb (gwerthodd > werthodd).
(65) y fenyw werthodd Ieuan y ceffyl iddi the woman sell.PAST.3S Ieuan the horse to.3FS
‘the woman that Ieuan sold the horse to’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 121)
Wh-questions, on the other hand, require pied-piping of an entire prepositional phrase to the
front, as shown in (66). Notice that the preposition appears in the bare form gan, not the default agreement form ganddo in third person masculine singular.
(66) Gan bwy gest ti ’r llythyr ’na? with who get.PAST.2S you the letter that
‘Who did you get that letter from?’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 115)
In contrast to wh-questions, pied-piping of the whole PP is not possible in relative causes. Willis (2011: 195) points out that this is because, unlike English, wh-words are not available
64 in Welsh relatives except for adjunct relatives. Therefore, pied-piping which is movement of a preposition and a wh-word is not an option in relative clauses:
(67) * y fenyw i bwy werthodd Ieuan y ceffyl the woman to who sell.PAST.3S Ieuan the horse
‘the woman to who Ieuan sold the horse’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 121)
The complementizer y(r) is available in the literary language, and it does not cause mutation on a following verb (Borsley et al. 2007):
(68) y wraig y gwerthodd Ieuan y ceffyl iddi the woman C sell.PAST.3S Ieuan the horse to.3FS
‘the woman to who Ieuan sold the horse’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 121) (69) Gan bwy y cefaist ’r llythyr hwnnw?
with who C get.PAST.2S the letter that
‘Who did you get that letter from?’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 115)
In prepositional relatives, we can observe the two properties of the resumptive strategy: the availability of overt pronouns and rich agreement. Overt pronouns are possible in object position of a preposition, as illustrated below.
(70) y myfyrwyr werthodd Ieuan y ceffyl iddyn nhw the students sell.PAST.3S Ieuan the horse to.3P them
‘the students that Ieuan sold the horse to’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 121)
As we already saw in (65), even when there is no overt pronoun, a preposition obligatorily shows agreement with an antecedent of relative clauses in Literary Welsh. In (71), the preposition am ‘about’ must agree with the plural antecedent y dynion ‘the men’. The mismatch of this agreement turns out to be ungrammatical, as in (71b).
65 (71) a. y dynion y soniais amdanynt
the men C talk.1S.PAST about.3P (Willis 2000: 534)
‘the men I talked about’
b. * y dynion y soniais amdano
the men C talk.1S.PAST about.3MS (Willis 2000: 535)
The availability of overt pronouns and rich agreement on a preposition suggest that prepositional relatives involve resumption in Literary Welsh. As we saw in (66), however, in
wh-questions a preposition does not show rich agreement with wh-expressions. The inflected
preposition is not possible in pied-piping, as illustrated in (72b).
(72) a. Am bwy soniodd Gwyn?
about who talk.PAST.3S Gwyn (Borsley 2009: 248)
‘About who did Gwyn talk?’
b. * Amdano bwy soniodd Gwyn? about.3MS who talk.PAST.3S Gwyn
I will consider the reason why a preposition does not show rich agreement with wh- expressions in 4.3.2.
I also look at the case of prepositions that have no inflectional morphology. In wh- questions, pied-piping is required just like inflectable prepositions.
(73) Efo pwy gest ti ginio? with who get.PAST.2S you lunch
‘Who did you have lunch with?’
In relative clauses, an overt pronoun needs to follow immediately after uninflectable prepositions in Literary Welsh (King 2003: 308).
(74) Dyma ’r ddynes ges i ginio efo hi. here the woman get.PAST.1S I lunch with her
66 An overt pronoun is optional with inflected prepositions, however, it is obligatory with uninflectable prepositions in Literary Welsh. Although we cannot check the availability of rich agreement in the case of uniflectable prepositions, the overt pronoun manifests the resumptive strategy.
I now turn to the situation in the colloquial variety. In Literary Welsh wh-questions require pied-piping, however, Borsley et al. (2007: 115) note that the resumptive pattern is also found in Colloquial Welsh. Only a wh-expression is fronted in initial position and a stranded preposition sits in clause-final position, as illustrated in (75) below. If a preposition can inflect, it normally appears in the third-person masculine singular form:
(75) Pwy gest ti ’r llythyr ’na gannddo? who get.PAST.2S you the letter that with.3MS
‘Who did you get that letter from?’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 115)
An overt resumptive pronoun may also be present after the inflected preposition.
(76) Pwy gest ti ’r llythyr ’na ganddo fe? who get.PAST.2S you the letter that with.3MS him
‘Who did you get that letter from?’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 115)
If the wh-expression is plural, the preposition is also in the plural form:31
(77) Pa rai gest ti ’r llythyr ’na ganddyn nhw? which ones get. PAST.2S you the letter that with.3P them
‘Which ones did you get that letter from?’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 115)
This resumptive pattern can be found with uninflectable prepositions. Borsley et al. (2007) point out that where the preposition has no inflected forms, an overt pronoun is obligatory in neutral registers.
31
I will show that this resumptive pattern is preferable with D-linked pa(which)-phrases to with non- D-liked wh-words in 2.4 below.
67 (78) Beth wyt ti ’n chwarae efo fo?
what be.PRES.2S you PROG play with it.3MS
‘What are you playing with?’ (Borsley et al. 2007: 115)
Furthermore, Willis (2000: 557) points out that the P-stranding pattern without agreement on the preposition is found in many varieties of Colloquial Welsh especially among young speakers. The stranded prepositions in a bare form sit in clause-final position in this pattern, as illustrated in (79).
(79) Beth mae e ’n w(h)ilo am? what be.PRES.3S he PROG look for
‘What is he looking for?’ (Willis 2000: 557)
If the preposition is stranded in a bare form, it cannot take an overt pronoun in its complement position.
(80) * Beth mae e ’n chwilio am fe? what be.PRES.3S he PROG look for it
‘What is he looking for?’ (Willis 2000: 557)
The unavailability of rich agreement on the preposition and overt pronouns clearly suggests that this P-stranding pattern involves movement. Willis (2000) points out that P-stranding is also found with uninflectable prepositions, as in (81).
(81) Pwy wnest ti chwarae efo? who do.PAST.2S you play with
‘Who did you play with?’
P-stranding is also observed in relative clauses. (82) is an example of inflectable prepositions, and (83) is an example of uninflectable prepositions.
68 (82) Dyna ’r llyfr wnaeth Mair sôn am.
that’s the book do.PAST.3S Mair talk about
‘That’s the book Mair talked about.’
(83) Cymraeg yw ’r iaith rôn i ’n siarad mewn. Welsh is the language be.IMPF.1S I PROG speak in
‘Welsh is the language I was talking in.’ (Willis 2000: 557)
2.3.3 Generalizations
The default pattern in Literary Welsh is that relative clauses require the resumptive strategy. Inflected prepositions licence a resumptive pronoun although it may be phonologically null (i.e. pro), and uninflectable prepositions take an overt pronoun as their complement. Wh- questions require pied-piping of an entire PP. In contrast, Colloquial Welsh allows P- stranding that involves movement in both relatives and wh-questions. From these observations, the following generalizations can be drawn:
(84) Generalizations on prepositional A’-dependencies in Welsh:
a. Literary Welsh: a head P is followed by its pronominal complement
(i.e., resumptive pronouns in relatives, wh-elements in interrogatives) b. Colloquial Welsh: a head P is followed by a trace left by movement.
These generalizations, however, do not capture the whole range of data in 2.2.2. As we saw above, Borsley et al. (2007) note that the resumptive pattern can be found in wh- questions and it is a characteristic of Colloquial Welsh. Therefore, the examples above in (75)-(78) that employ the resumptive strategy may be counterexamples of the generalization (84b). However, the acceptability judgements suggest that this resumptive pattern in wh- questions does not seem to be very pervasive compared to the P-stranding pattern, as we will see in 2.4 below.