The syntax of Gascon clause-type particles

Annick Morin

Bearnese Gascon uses particles (the so-called "enunciative particles") to mark declarative, interrogative, and exclamative clauses. In this article it is shown that those particles are in the left periphery and that their interaction with Force, Topic, and Negation presents us with two puzzles. First, in embedded clauses, those particles can co-occur with a complementiser only in the presence of a topic. Second, although those particles and the negative marker are mutually exclusive, the negative marker can actually co-occur with a complementiser in the absence of a topic. To solve the first puzzle, it is proposed that the Topic head has blocking effects because it has the right features to induce a relativised minimality effect; to solve the second puzzle, it is proposed that the negative marker and the enunciative particles occupy the same syntactic position, but have a different syntactic behaviour because they have different inherent features.

Gascon, enunciative particles, topic, negation