  The Ashtekar formulation of 2+1 gravity differs from the geometrodynamical
and Witten descriptions when the 2-metric is degenerate. We study the phase
space of 2+1 gravity in the Ashtekar formulation to understand these degenerate
solutions to the field equations. In the process we find two new systems of
first class constraints which describe part of the degenerate sectors of the
Ashtekar formulation. One of them also generalizes the Witten constraints.
Finally we argue that the Ashtekar formulation has an arbitrarily large number
of degrees of freedom in contrast to the usual descriptions. TO GET THE FIGURES
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