The Syntax of Direct Object Mutation in Welsh

Abstract

The central hypothesis of this article is that Welsh direct object mutation—the only instance of mutation in the Celtic languages not triggered by a specific lexical item—is the PF-realisation of AgrO’s accusative Case as the floating lenition-triggering phonological feature L (cf. Lieber 1983 and Zwicky 1984). The analysis proposed in this article is an empirically adquate analysis of initial consonant mutation in Welsh, which fully integrates direct object mutation with other cases of mutation, relates mutation to phonosyntactic processes found in other languages, notably Southern Italian /u/-propagation (Rizzi and Savoia 1991) and French liaison (Manzini 1983), and fits naturally into a non-checking-theoreticconception of Parametric Variation of the sort outlined in Roberts and Roussou (1997a).