Etudes de syntaxe interrogative du français

Control From Comp and Comparative Syntax

“…Before addressing these questions, we will first show that the analysis concerning the subject/object asymmetries involving the French wA-word quoi sheds light upon the nature of Control from COMP, and is directly relevant for determining the Control from COMP parameter. discussed in the literature, among others by Obenauer (1976Obenauer ( , 1977, Hirschbόhler (1978) and Goldsmith (198l). 11 Here, we will show that quoi's idiosyncratic distribution can be reduced to the existence of one language specific filter.…”

“…This filter is in essence a reformulation (integrating Chomsky & Lasnik, 1977) of the rule PAS-DE-QUOI of Obenauer (1976), and can be considered the core of the analysis of the quoi/que and ce que alternations (see Koopman, J982a). Since Chomsky & Lasnik (1977), it is generally assumed that Filters apply in the phonological component (PR).…”

Acquiring optionality in french wh-questions: an experimental study*

“…Morphological factors: The element que 'what' can appear only in the inversion structure while in in situ 'what'questions the form quoi is obligatory (whether the morphology dictates the position or the position dictates the morphology is a question that will not be discussed in this paper; see Bouchard and Hirschbühler 1986, Hirschbühler 1979, Obenauer 1976, Pollock 1992 . Nevertheless, in many cases it seems that all options are allowed, without influencing the interpretation or the grammaticality status of the question.…”

Word order in Hungarian exclamatives

“…French (Obenauer 1976) and Italian (dialects) (Munaro 2003;Portner-Zanuttini 2003) are known examples. In Paduan, for example, wh-constituents in questions always follow left dislocations (a to sorela 'to your sister'), while complex wh-phrases in exclamatives precede them (Portner-Zanuttini 2003): The situation in Hungarian exclamatives recalls the state of affairs from Paduan: while interrogative wh-phrases without exception get fronted into the immediately preverbal position triggering inversion between the verb and the preverb, some exclamative wh-phrases can occupy a position which seems to be distinct in the light of inversion.…”