Breton grammar

Breton is a Brittonic Celtic language in the Indo-European family, and its grammar has many traits in common with these languages. Like most Indo-European languages it has grammatical gender, grammatical number, articles and inflections and, like the other Celtic languages, Breton has mutations. In addition to the singular–plural system, it also has a singulative–collective system, similar to Welsh. Unlike the other Brittonic languages, Breton has both a definite and indefinite article, whereas Welsh and Cornish lack an indefinite article and unlike the other extant Celtic languages, Breton has been influenced by French.

Nouns

Gender

Like in most other Indo-European languages, Breton nouns belong to distinct grammatical genders/noun classes: masculine () and feminine (). The neuter (), which existed in Breton's ancestor, Brittonic, survives in a few words, such as (thing), which takes and causes the mutations of a feminine noun but in all other grammatical respects behaves as if it were masculine.

The gender of a noun is hard to predict, and for some words can even vary from dialect to dialect. However, certain semantic groups of word tend to belong to a particular gender. For example, names of countries and cities often are feminine, whereas most divisions of time are masculine. Some suffixes denote the same gender:

• Masculine suffixes include: , , , , , , , .
• Feminine suffixes include: , , (see "singulative" below), , , , , , .

Number

Nouns may exist in as many as four numbers: collective / singulative (see below) or singular / plural. Most plural forms are formed with the addition of a suffix, often for animate nouns and for inanimates, for example, "Breton" to "Bretons", "book" to , although some nouns referring to people take , such as "witness" becoming . Other suffixes also occur, for example, "Englishman" to , "house" to . A few nouns form their plural via vowel alternation, such as "castle" to , "stone" to , the combination of a suffix and vowel alternation, such as "crow" to , "hare" to while others are irregular, like "person" to , "dog" to either or .

As well as having a regular plural form, certain parts of the body display relics of a dual system, prefixing to masculine nouns and to feminine nouns. An example of this is singular "eye", plural "eyes", dual "(pair of) eyes". Dual forms themselves can have a plural form, for example, "(pairs of) eyes".

Singulative

A distinctive and unusual feature of Brythonic languages is a singulative marker, which in Breton is marked with the feminine suffix . While the collective noun , for instance, means "trees (collectively)", the singulative means "(a single) tree". The latter can even be made into a regular plural with the meaning "several trees (individually)".

Diminutive

Breton forms diminutive nouns using the suffix with the plural formed by reduplication of the suffix , for example, "meadow", "little meadow", "little meadows" (cf. non-diminutive plural "meadows").

Articles

In Breton, the article has both definite and indefinite forms. This is unlike other Celtic languages, which have only definite articles. The definite article is before dentals, vowels and unpronounced , before and elsewhere. Examples of this include "the fire", "the mouse", "the chair". The indefinite article, derived from the number "one", follows the same pattern of final consonants: "a fire", "a mouse", "a chair".

The definite article may contract with preceding prepositions, for instance "in" + gives "in the".

Adjectives

Adjectives can be inflected for comparison with the suffixes (comparative) and (superlative). These suffixes cause preceding consonants to undergo provection (see "wet" and "red" in the table). "good" and "bad" are examples of adjectives that can have irregular forms.

positive	comparative	superlative
"big"	"bigger"	"biggest"
"wet"	"wetter"	"wettest"
"red"	"redder"	"reddest"
"good"	"better"	"best"
"bad"	, "worse"	, "worst"

In addition to the above forms, some adjectives can have separate equative forms, for example, "as big", "as good", "as bad". More regular equatives are formed with "as", for example, "as wet", "as bad". Breton also possesses an exclamative suffix , as in "(how) big!", "(how) wet!", "(how) good!", but this is obsolete except in certain expressions.

Adjectives can also have a diminutive form in , for example, "small" to , "big" to .

Adverbs

Adverbs in Breton do not inflect. Adverbs can be formed from adjectives by means of , as in "loyally" from "loyal"

Prepositions

As in other Celtic languages, prepositions in Breton are either simple or complex and may or may not inflect for person, number and gender. Historically, inflected prepositions derive from the contraction between a preposition and a personal pronoun.

In general, simple prepositions that inflect take one of two possible groups of suffixes. The stem employed for the third person forms may be different from that of other persons. Inflected prepositions distinguish gender in the third person singular.

		endings	endings
uninflected		"with"	"for"
1sg		"with me"	"for me"
2sg		"with you"	"for you"
3sg	m.	"with him"	"for him"
	f.	"with her"	"for her"
1pl		"with us"	"for us"
2pl		"with you"	"for you"
3pl		, "with them"	, "for them"
impersonal		"with one"	"for one"

Simple prepositions that do not inflect include and "from", "before" and "after".

Complex prepositions inflect by means of interfixes, whereby the nominal second element is preceded by a pronominal form. This is similar to how can become in archaic English. Mutations may be triggered following the various pronominal forms.

uninflected		"about"	"near"
1sg		"about me"	"near me"
2sg		"about you"	"near you"
3sg	m.	"about him"	"near him"
	f.	"about her"	"near her"
1pl		"about us"	"near us"
2pl		"about you"	"near you"
3pl		"about them"	"near them"
impersonal		"about one"	"near one"

Conjunctions

Certain conjunctions have an additional form used when followed by a vowel, such as "and" becoming and "than" becoming . A conjunction is usually followed by the particle when preceding a verb, for example, "and he fell", "because he fell", although this is not the case for "that, if", "if", "if, when, because".

Pronouns

Personal

Personal pronouns may be strong, post-clitic head or pre-clitic head. Strong pronouns have the same distribution as a full noun phrase and may be subjects, objects or prepositional objects. Post-clitic head pronouns tend to follow finite verbs, nouns or inflected prepositions. Pre-clitic head pronouns function as object pronouns preceding verb phrases and possessive determiners preceding noun phrases.

		strong	post-clitic head	pre-clitic head	partitive paraphrase
1sg
2sg
3sg	m.
	f.
1pl
2pl
3pl

As in Welsh and French, the second person plural pronoun is used in the singular to show politeness. A large part of central Brittany has lost the second person singular altogether and uses for all second person reference. The partitive paraphrase has replaced the traditional post-clitic object pronoun in every dialect except Gwenedeg (Vannetais), except when object is fronted for emphasis. The inflected forms of the preposition ‘of’ placed after the verb are substituted for the traditional object pronoun, e.g. ‘Yannig saw them in town’, more literally ‘In the town Yannig saw of them’, and occasionally function as subjects (with intransitive, usually negative, verbs).

Demonstrative

Demonstrative pronouns display three degrees of proximity as well as gender and number.

	masculine singular	feminine singular	common plural
near the speaker
near the listener
far from speaker and listener

Demonstrative determiners are post-head clitics used in conjunction with the definite article.

	clitic	example
near the speaker	"here"	"this river"
near the listener	"there"	"that little house"
far from speaker and listener	"over there, yonder"	"that lake over there"

Indefinite

Indefinite pronouns may be positive, such as "some, ones" and "all" and negative, such as "nothing" and "nowhere", and may be preceded by a determiner, for example "some" ("the ones") and "your" ("your ones").

Verbs

Regular conjugation

Breton verbs can be conjugated to show tense, aspect, mood, person and number by adding suffixes to the verbal stem, seen in the following table.

		singular			plural			impers.
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Indicative	Present			no ending
	Imperfect
	Preterite
	Future
Conditional	Present
	Imperfect
Imperative		—	no ending					—

Additional suffixes may form the verbal noun. The most common of these are:

• as in "say", "can, be able", "hear, smell"
• as in "drink", "dress", "write"
• as in "eat", "learn", "give"

For other verbs, the stem itself is also the verbnoun, for example, "wait", "read", "understand".

Verbs also have a past participle formed with a suffix and a present participle form comprising the verbal noun preceded by the particle , which causes a mixed mutation.

Most verbs are regular and stray little from the usual patterns. The table shows and example of the regular verb "eat" (verbal stem ).

		singular			plural			impers.
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Indicative	Present
	Imperfect
	Preterite
	Future
Conditional	Present
	Imperfect
Imperative		—						—

Verbal noun	Present participle	Past participle

Irregular conjugation

A few common verbs are irregular, including "do".

		singular			plural			0
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Indicative	Present
	Imperfect
	Preterite
	Future
Conditional	Present
	Imperfect
Imperative		—						—

Verbal noun	Present participle	Past participle

"go" has irregular conjugation.

		singular			plural			0
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Indicative	Present
	Imperfect
	Preterite
	Future
Conditional	Present
	Imperfect
Imperative		—						—

Verbal noun	Present participle	Past participle

The verb "know" is also irregular. In addition to the forms below, it also has a number of other possible variant roots.

		singular			plural			0
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Indicative	Present
	Imperfect
	Preterite
	Future
Conditional	Present
	Imperfect
Imperative		—						—

Verbal noun	Present participle	Past participle

"be" is another irregular verb, which is conjugated for additional tense or aspect distinctions.

		singular			plural			0
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Indicative	Present
	Present (situative)
	Present (habitual)
	Future
	Imperfect
	Imperfect (situative)
	Imperfect (habitual)
	Preterite
Conditional	Present
	Imperfect
Imperative		—						—

Verbal noun	Present participle	Past participle
, older: ,

Another common irregular verb is "have", which combines a person marker with the tensed form. is historically derived from and a similar development is seen in Cornish.

		singular			plural			0
		1st	2nd	3rd	1st	2nd	3rd
Indicative	Present
	Present (habitual)
	Future
	Imperfect
	Imperfect (habitual)
	Preterite
Conditional	Present
	Imperfect

Verbal noun	Present participle
or

Compound tenses

, and can all be used as auxiliary verbs.

In the present, Breton (like Cornish and Irish but unlike the other Celtic languages) distinguishes between the simple and progressive present. The simple present is formed by either conjugating the verb or using the verbal noun with the present of . The progressive present, on the other hand, is formed with the present situative of combined with present participle. In addition to these two aspectual distinctions, Breton has a habitual present which utilises the present habitual of and the present participle. Combining the past participle with either or is the usual way of forming the past tense, the conjugated forms being restricted to more literary language. The choice between or depends on whether the past participle is that of a transitive or intransitive verb respectively (similar to the passé composé of French), for instance, "find" takes to give "he has found" whereas "fall" takes to give "he has fallen".

Negation

Non-tensed verbs are negated with bipartite either side of the main verb, for example, "I do not write", or auxiliary, for example, "he was not killed". is replaced with in imperatives, relative clauses, after "before" and "for, so" and in expressions of fear, for instance, "do not sing", "a thing which I did not ask", "so that he does not see you".

Unable to be negated by the previous structure, infinitives can be expressed negatively by means of a compound phrases, so that, for instance, "eat" may become "not eat" (literally, "pass without eating") and "run" "not run" (literally, "keep from running"). is occasionally used, however, to negate infinitives.

Numbers

Cardinal numbers

Similar to other Celtic languages, Breton has an underlying vigesimal counting system. "One" is , , before a noun (the same as the indefinite article). "Two", "three" and "four" and derivative numbers have separate masculine and feminine forms. Interesting irregularities in the system are "eighteen", literally "three sixes", and "fifty", literally "half a hundred" (compare Welsh "two nines" and "half a hundred").

0
1		11		21
2		12		22
3		13		30
4		14		40
5		15		50
6		16		60
7		17		70
8		18		80
9		19		90
10		20		100

Ordinal numbers

A gender distinction can again be shown with some ordinal numbers.

1st
2nd	(m.), (f.)
3rd	(m.), (f.)
4th	(m.), (f.)
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th

Mutations

The main mutations cause the following changes:

Unmutated	Soft	Spirant	Hard	Mixed
			—	—
			—	—
			—	—
		—
		—
		—
		—
		—	—

References

• Jouitteau, M. (2009-now) ARBRES, Breton wiki grammar on-line, IKER, CNRS [4 823 content pages].
• Press, I. (1986) A Grammar of Modern Breton (Mouton De Gruyter)
• Denez, P. (1971) Kentelioù brezhoneg : eil derez, Al Liamm
• Denez, P. (1977) Étude structurale d'un parler breton: Douarnenez, thèse (3 vol.), Université de Rennes
• Denez, P. (1985) Geriadur brezhoneg Douarnenez, 4 vol., Mouladurioù Hor Yezh
• Denez, P. (1987) Mont war-raok gant ar brezhoneg, MHY