Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:17:01.170Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Subject-clitic inversion and inflectional hierarchies*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Michael A. Jones
Michael A. Jones
Affiliation:
Dept. of Language & Linguistics, University of Essex, ColchesterCO4 3SQ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper attributes the effects of subject-clitic inversion to a reversal of the normal hierarchy between Tense (T) and Mood (M) projections which is induced by certain modal or illocutionary features. The simple inversion pattern results from raising of the verb to M, while the subject raises to Spec TP. This structure provides a position (Spec MP) for the lexical subject in the case of complex inversion, without the need for multiple specifiers or additional functional categories. By raising to this position, the lexical subject binds a surrogate clitic in Spec TP, creating an argument Chain which contains a single theta-position and a single Case position. The implications of this analysis for subject questions and the phenomenon of stylistic inversion are also discussed in some detail.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , September 1999 , pp. 181 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Baker, M. C. (1988) Incorporation. University of Chicago Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Benincà, P. and Poletto, C. (1997) Romance do-support. Paper presented at the ‘Going Romance XI’ conference, Groningen, December 1997.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N.. (1981) Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1986) Barriers. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1995) The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Drijkoningen, F. (1990) Functional heads and the unification of French word order. Probus 2.3: 291–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, J. (1997) Projection, Heads and Optimality. Linguistic Inquiry 28.3: 373–422.Google Scholar
Hulk, A. C. J. (1993) Residual V2 and the licensing of functional features. Probus 5: 127–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, M. A. (1996) Foundations of French Syntax. Cambridge: CUP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, M. A. (1997) French complex inversion and articulated clause structure. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics 17: 1–18.Google Scholar
Jones, M. A. (1998) On covert movement. In: If you see what I mean: Essays on language, presented to Keith Brown on the occasion of his retirement in 1998 (special issue of Essex Research Reports in Linguistics), pp. 34–48. University of Essex.Google Scholar
Katamba, F. (1993) Morphology. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. (1972) Subject inversion in French interrogatives. In: Casagrande, J. and Saciuk, B. (eds), Generative Studies in Romance Languages. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House, pp. 70–126.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. (1984) Connectedness and Binary Branching. Foris: Dordrecht.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kayne, R. S. (1995) Tlte Antisymmetry of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. and Pollock, J-Y. (1978) Stylistic Inversion, Successive Cyclicity and Move NP in French. Linguistic Inquiry 9.4: 595–621.Google Scholar
Koopman, H. and Sportiche, D. (1991) The position of subjects. Lingua 85: 211–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Obenauer, H-G. (1976) Études de syntaxe interrogative du français: ‘quoi’, ‘combien’ el le complémenteur. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, L. and Roberts, I. (1989) Complex inversion in French. Probus 1: 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, I. (1998) Case and inversion in the history of French. Ms. University of Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Sportiche, D. (1994) Subject clitics in French and Romance complex inversion and clitic doubling. Ms. UCLA (to appear in Johnson, K. and Roberts, I. (eds.), Studies in Comparative Romance Syntax. Dordrecht: Kluwer).Google Scholar
Valois, D. and Dupuis, F. (1992) On the status of (verbal) traces in French, the case of stylistic inversion. In: Hirschbuhler, P. and Koerner, K. (eds), Romance Languages and Modern Linguistic Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 325–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wind, M. de, (1994) Against V-to-C in French complex inversion. In: Mazzola, M. L. (ed.) Issues and Theory in Romance Linguistics. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 271–284.Google Scholar
Wind, M. de, (1995) Inversion in French. Groningen Dissertations in Linguistics 15, University of Groningen.Google Scholar