La syntaxe des coordinations corrélatives du français

Abstract

François Mouret: Corrélative Coordinations in French. Two kinds of coordinate structures can be distinguished in French according to the distribution of conjunctions. In simplex coordinations, the conjunction introduces the last conjunct and optionally appears before non-initial conjuncts [ Paul (et) Jean et Marie) while in correlative coordinations, which are the focus of this paper, the conjunction appears before each conjunct, including the first one (et Paul '(et) Jean et Marie). We present arguments against asymmetric analyses according to which the initial conjunction should be analyzed as an adverb (more precisely focus-sensitive adverbs), homonymous with the conjunction and adjoined to the coordinate phrase. Instead, we adopt a construction-based variant of the symmetric analysis according to which each conjunct is introduced by one and the same conjunction. We couch our analysis in the phrase structure grammar HPSG. We assume [ conj X] phrases to be liead-complement-constructions while coordinate structures are a type of non-headed construction. We define two subtypes of coordinations to account for the distribution and spécifie properties of simplex and corrélative constructions.

Closest conjunct agreement with attributive adjectives

“…They do not expect differences between backward and forward agreement. 19 Unlike structure (a), structure (b) is not defined as a binary phrase, it is well suited for ternary coordinations (étudiants, professeurs et étudiantes) with N1, N2 and N3' at the same level, as well as for coordinations with several conjunctions (et Paul et Marie 'both Paul and Marie') with N1' and N2' at the same level Mouret (2005). However, it needs specific feature percolation principles and does not obey X-bar theory.…”

A syntactic account of Romanian correlative coordination from a Romance perspective

“…In order to give an unitary account for the Romance data, we further posit three subtypes of coordinated phrases (see Mouret 2005 and2007), differing on whether all the conjuncts (42), some conjuncts (43) or none of them ( 44) is headed by a conjunction. The first subtype is the omnisyndeticcoordinated-phrase, accounting for symmetric structures in Romance and, particularly, for the disjunction type in Romanian.…”

“…(6b)), available for French (cf. Piot 2000, Mouret 2005and 2007 and for Romance languages more generally (and a priori for Japanese and Korean), where all coordinators represent the same conjunctions combining with each conjunct, hence the term conjunction doubling. The paper is structured as follows: In Section 2, we briefly mention the main distributional properties in Romance languages, and contrast French and Italian vs. Spanish and Romanian.…”

A phrase structure approach to argument cluster coordination

“…(iii) She [plays the piano] as well as [sings lieder].rather than before (13), as expected if this predicate were included in the first conjunct.5(12) a (13) a *Paul compte et offrir un disque à Marie et un livre à Jean b *Les résultats sont et inférieurs à la moyenne régionale de 15% et à la moyenne nationale de 20 %As suggested byBeavers & Sag (2004), one could maintain an elliptical structure by considering that 'initial' conjunctions do not mark the left edge of the first conjunct in coordinate structures but rather the boundary between elided and non-elided material, hence occurring after the shared material. While at first sight attractive, this solution makes it difficult to account for the fact that finite V/VP/S correlative coordinations are rejected by many French speakers with initial conjunctions et and ni (14-15-16) while none of them rejects corresponding ACC in the scope of a finite verb (17) (cf Mouret 2005)…”