373An analysis of Scottish GaelicScottish Gaelic complex constructions involving verbal nouns

This paper offers an analysis of complex constructions involving verbal nouns in Scottish Gaelic within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) (Van Valin and LaPolla 1997; Van Valin 2005; Bentley et al. 2023). First of all, it aims to contribute to the study of non-finite constructions cross-linguistically through a detailed analysis of complex constructions including a construction-specific non-finite verbal form referred to as ‘verbal noun’ (MacAuley 1992; Gillies 1993; Cox 2017; Byrne 2018; Adger 2010) in Scottish Gaelic. Secondly, it attempts to find a correlation between the morphosyntactic properties of complex constructions containing verbal nouns in Scottish Gaelic and the syntactic linkage types proposed by RRG (Van Valin 2005: 183–201; Van Valin 2023: 69–84) based on the functional characterization of the main predicate and the syntactic structure of the linked unit. Finally, it examines the relationship between the syntactic structure in each construction and its meaning focusing on a number of specific interclausal semantic relations (Van Valin 2005: 205–208; Van Valin 2023: 84–86). The aim is to verify whether there is an iconic relationship between interclausal semantic relations and juncture-nexus syntactic types in Scottish Gaelic. The main findings of this study provide evidence that there are a number of distinctive properties in constructions involving verbal nouns in Scottish Gaelic that complicate their analysis, such as the hybrid nature of the verbal noun, the varied realization of the actor of the linked core, and the particular syntactic arrangement of some constituents in the different types of linked unit. This study also confirms that juncture-nexus types are abstract linkage relations rather than grammatical construction types and that there is an implicational connection between the degree of syntactic and semantic integration between the units in complex constructions (Van Valin 2005: 209; Van Valin 2023: 88)