Article published in:
Non-Nuclear CasesEdited by Nicole Delbecque, Karen Lahousse and Willy Van Langendonck
[Case and Grammatical Relations Across Languages 6] 2014
► pp. 173–216
The distribution of adverbials in declarative sentences in French
This paper examines the distribution of different classes of adverbials within French declarative sentences, and links it to information structure. First, each position hosting an adverbial within a French declarative sentence is shown to be specialized for (a) specific type(s) of adverbial(s). Next, the relation with information structure is spelled out. The theoretical assumption is that adverbials can be classified as either focusable or not, and that this distinction also applies to the entire sentence: a French declarative sentence contains a non-focusable and a focusable section separated by the position for the negation particle. French appears to be characterized by a strong correlation between the (un)focusability of adverbials and the positions these adverbials can occupy.
Published online: 17 December 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/cagral.6.06mag
https://doi.org/10.1075/cagral.6.06mag
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