Abstract
In addition to the Qu-est-ce que questions in (1) which, as their translations indicate, are mono-clausal despite their bi-clausal form, French has yes/no questions such as (2) in which the est-ce que sequence shows up again.
Où est-ce qu’il est parti? ‘Where is ce that he is gone?’ = Where did he go? |
Qu’est-ce qu’il fait? ‘Que is ce that he does ?’ = What is he doing? |
Est-ce qu’il est parti? ‘Is ce that he is gone?’ = Has he gone? |
Est-ce qu’il fait beau? ‘Is ce that it is nice?’ = Is the weather nice? |
(2) are also ‘ordinary’ polar questions. Since French seems to be unique in the Romance domain in accepting the Qu-questions in (1) and the polar questions in (2) it is tempting to suggest that a proper analysis of the former should also shed light on the latter. This article will verify whether this a priori desirable generalisation is valid. As a first step, it will look at the analysis of Est-ce que as an interrogative head ESK merged in the CP domain suggested by Cheng and Rooryck (2000. Licensing WH-in situ. Syntax 3.1. April 2000, 3–19.) which expresses it in its strongest possible form: Est-ce que yes/no questions like (2) would seem to only differ from their Qu-counterparts in missing the Qu-element. The article will show that their ESK proposal should be challenged empirically and theoretically in sections 2, 3 and 4. It will investigate Est-ce que polar questions and related constructions in detail in section 5 and will show in 6 that they do indeed share one crucial property with qu’est-ce que questions, although the generalisation it arrives at in section 7 substantially differs from Cheng & Rooryck’s proposal.
References
Adli, A. 2004. Y-a-t-il des morphèmes interrogatifs impliqués dans la syntaxe interrogative du français, le cas du QU in situ. In Trudel Meisenburg & et Maria Selig (eds.), Nouveaux départs en Phonologie: les conceptions sub et supra segmentales. Tübingen: narr.Search in Google Scholar
Ambar, M. & R. Veloso. 1999. On the nature of Wh-phrases, word order and Wh-in-situ, Romance languages and linguistic theory, vol. 221. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Search in Google Scholar
Bayer, J. 2012. From modal particle to interrogative marker: A study of German denn. In L. Brugè, A. Cardinaletti, G. Giusti, N. Munaro & C. Poletto (eds.), Functional heads. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746736.003.0001Search in Google Scholar
Blanche-Benvéniste, C, J. Delofeu, J. Stéfanini & K. Van Den Eyden. 1984. Pronoms et syntaxe, l’approche pronominale et son application au français. Paris: SELAF.Search in Google Scholar
Bondaruk, A. 2019. Agreement with the post-verbal DP in Polish dual copula clauses. In Maria J. Arche, Antonia Fàbregas & Rafael Marin (eds.), The grammar of copulas across languages, 107–129. New York: Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, OUP.10.1093/oso/9780198829850.003.0006Search in Google Scholar
Cheng, L. & J. Rooryck. 2000. Licensing WH-in situ. Syntax 3.1. April 2000, 3–19.Search in Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1955. The logical structure of linguistic theory. New York: Plenum. 1975.Search in Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 1957. Syntactic structures. Mouton.10.1515/9783112316009Search in Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. 2021. Minimalism: Where are we now, and where can we hope to go, unpublished paper, University of Arizona.Search in Google Scholar
Collins, C. & R. S. Kayne. 2021. Towards a theory of morphology as Syntax. NYU manuscript.Search in Google Scholar
Foulet, L. 1919. Petite syntaxe de l’ancien français. Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1974.Search in Google Scholar
Gibson, H., R. Guérois & L. Marten. 2019. Variation in Bantou copula constructions. In Maria J. Arche, Antonia Fàbregas & Rafael Marin (eds.), The grammar of copulas across Languages, 213–242. New York: Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics, OUP.10.1093/oso/9780198829850.003.0011Search in Google Scholar
Holmberg, A. 2012. The syntax of answers to polar questions in English and Swedish. Lingua 128 (2013). 31–50.10.1016/j.lingua.2012.10.018Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. 1972. L’inversion du sujet en français dans les propositions interrogatives’, Le Français Moderne 41.1, 10-42 et 41.2, 131-151. Also appeared in English as “Subject Inversion in French Interrogatives”. In J. Casagrande & B. Saciuk (eds.), Generative studies in Romance languages, 1972, 70–126. Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. 2006. ‘Expletives, datives and the tension between morphology and syntax’, NYU Manuscript, appeared in 2008. In T. Biberauer (ed.), The limits of syntactic variation, 175–217. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/la.132.07kaySearch in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. 2009. The English indefinite article One. Hand-out to a talk given on June 23rd 2009 at University of Cambridge, UK.Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. 2011. More on relative pronouns. Leiden hand-out.Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. 2016. The Unicity of there and the definiteness effect, NYU manuscript, appeared in 2019. In E. Gonçalves (ed.), Existential constructions in focus. Editora da Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil, and was reprinted in Questions of Syntax.Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. 2019. Questions of syntax. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. 2020. Notes on expletive there. The Linguistic Review 37 (2). 209–230. https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2019-2042.Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. & J.-Y Pollock. 1978. Stylistic inversion, successive cyclicity and move NP in French. Linguistic Inquiry 9. 595–621.Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. & J.-Y. Pollock. 2001. New thoughts on stylistic inversion. In A. Hulk & J.-Y. Pollock (eds.), Subject inversion in Romance and the theory of universal grammar, 107–162. New York & Oxford: OUP.Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. & J.-Y. Pollock. 2011. Notes on French and English demonstratives, manuscript NYU, came out in 2010. In J.-W. Zwart & M. de Vries (eds.), Structure preserved: Studies in Syntax for jan Koster, 215–228. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Also appears as chapter 8 of Kayne (2019).10.1075/la.164.24kaySearch in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. & J.-Y. Pollock. 2012. Toward an analysis of French hyper-complex inversion. In Laura Brugé, Cardinaletti Anna, Giuliana Giusti, Nicolas Munaro & Cecilia Poletto (eds.), Functional heads (The cartography of Syntactic Structures 7), 150–167. Oxford u.a.: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746736.003.0012Search in Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. & J.-Y. Pollock. 2014. Locality and agreement in French hyper-complex inversion. In Enoch Oladé Aboh, Maria Teresa Guasti & Ian Roberts (eds.), Locality (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax), 32–57. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199945269.003.0002Search in Google Scholar
Lorusso, P. & A. Moro. 2020. The propredicative clitic in Italo Romance: A micro-parametric variation approach. Florence: NEtS Scuola Universitaria Superiore IUSS Pavia.Search in Google Scholar
Moro, A. 1997. The raising of predicates: Predicative noun phrases and the theory of clause structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511519956Search in Google Scholar
Munaro, N. & H. Obenauer. 2002. On the semantic widening of underspecified wh-elements. In M. Leonetti, O. Fernàndez Soriano & V. Escandell Vidal (eds.), Current Issues in generative grammar, 165–194. Universidad de Alcalà - Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia -Universidad Autònoma de Madrid.Search in Google Scholar
Munaro, N. & J.-Y. Pollock. 2005. Qu’est-ce que (Que)-est-ce que? In G. Cinque & R. Kayne (eds.), The Oxford handbook of comparative syntax, 542–606. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Munaro, N. 2021. Clause typing in main polar questions: Evidence from Italo Romance. unpublished manuscript, Venice.Search in Google Scholar
Obenauer, H. G. 1981. Le principe des catégories vides et la syntaxe des interrogatives complexes. Langue Française 52. 100–118. https://doi.org/10.3406/lfr.1981.5109.Search in Google Scholar
Obenauer, H.-G & J.-Y. Pollock. 1983. Présentation. In Obenauer & Pollock (eds.), Français et grammaire universelle, 3–14. Langue Française n°58, Paris: Larousse.Search in Google Scholar
Poletto, C. & J.-Y. Pollock. 2004. On wh-clitics and wh-doubling in French and some North Eastern Italian dialects. Probus 16(2). 241–272. https://doi.org/10.1515/prbs.2004.16.2.241.Search in Google Scholar
Poletto, C. & J.-Y. Pollock. 2009. Another look at wh-questions in Romance. In D. Torck & W.L. Wetzels (eds.), Romance languages and linguistic theory 2006, 199–258. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.10.1075/cilt.303.12polSearch in Google Scholar
Poletto, C. & J.-Y. Pollock. 2015. Arguing for remnant movement in Romance. In Günther Grewendorf (ed.), Remnant movement, 135–178. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9781614516330-006Search in Google Scholar
Poletto, C. & J.-Y. Pollock. 2021. Remnant movement and smuggling in some Romance interrogative clauses. In A. Belletti & C. Collins (eds.), Smugggling in syntax, 255–317. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780197509869.003.0010Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, J.-Y. 1989. Verb movement, universal grammar and the structure of IP. Linguistic Inquiry 20(3). 365–425.Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, J.-Y. 2006. Subject clitics, subject clitic inversion and complex inversion. In Martin Everaert & Henc C. van Riemsjik (eds.), The Blackwell companion to syntax, vol. IV, 601–659. Malden, MA, USA: Blackwell.10.1002/9780470996591.ch67Search in Google Scholar
Pollock, J.-Y. 2021. On the syntax of Qu’est-ce que clauses and related constructions. Probus 33(1). 95–169. https://doi.org/10.1515/prbs-2020-0010.Search in Google Scholar
Prieto, P. & G. Rigau. 2007. The syntax-prosody Interface: Catalan interrogative sentences headed by que. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 6–2 (2007). 29–59. https://doi.org/10.5334/jpl.139.Search in Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. 1997. The fine structure of the left periphery. In Liliana Haegeman (ed.), Elements of grammar. A Handbook of generative syntax, 281–337. Dordrecht: Kluwer.10.1007/978-94-011-5420-8_7Search in Google Scholar
Rizzi, L. 2021. Cours du Collège de France: « L’approche critériale des constructions de portée-discours et le statut des marqueurs de topique, focus et question ».Search in Google Scholar
Taraldsen, K. T. 2002. The Que/Qui alternation and the distribution of expletives. In P. Svenonius (ed.), Subjects, expletives, and the EPP. OUP.Search in Google Scholar
Vergnaud, Jean Roger. 1974. French relative clauses, Doctoral dissertation. Cambridge, Mass: MIT.Search in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston