| Title: | The dramatic extraction construction in French |
| Authors: | Anne Abeillé, Danièle Godard, Frédéric Sabio |
| Publication: | Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics, XI (1) |
| p-ISSN: | 2069-9239 |
| Publisher: | Universitatea din București |
| Place: | București |
| Year: | 2009 |
| Abstract: | Relying on spoken corpora (Corpaix, CRFP) and on previous studies (Sabio 1995, 1996), we identify a construction common in spoken French, which we analyze as a particular case of extraction: a. dix sept ans il a. (Seventeen years he has) [Corpaix] b. deux cigarettes j'ai fumé. (Two cigarettes I smoked) [on the fly]. The construction can only be a root clause and a declarative clause. Its interpretation is that of a thetic proposition. On the other hand, it is not associated with a unique information structure, since it is compatible with a focus-ground partition, with the extracted constotunet as a narrow focus, or with an all focus interpretation. We call this construction ‘dramatic extraction’, and the extracted element a ‘center’ (i.e. a focus or a figure). We formalize our analysis in the HPSG grammar. |
| Key words: | French, syntax, focus fronting, Romance, HPSG |
| Links: |  pdf  html |
Citations to this publication: 0
References in this publication: 0
The citations/references list is based on indexed publications only, and may therefore be incomplete.
For any and all inquiries related to the database, please contact us at [Please enable javascript to view.].
Preview:
