Article published in:
Variation within and across Romance Languages: Selected papers from the 41st Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Ottawa, 5–7 May 2011
Edited by Marie-Hélène Côté and Eric Mathieu
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 333] 2014
► pp. 315–330

The French wh interrogative system

Evolution and clefting

| Université du Québec à Chicoutimi
Today French speakers have access to at least five different variants of wh questions, which shows the inherent complexity of the wh interrogative system. This article aims at providing new pieces of evidence for the analysis of French wh interrogatives. Through the study of the evolution and usage of all variants, we show that the wh+est-ce que variants are at the center of the system’s evolution. They explain why so many variants have been preserved, and they are also the trigger of a possible structural change affecting the interrogative left periphery. Assuming the diglossic approach, some registers of French lack wh movement, and now produce wh interrogatives that are similar to syntactic clefting. Such an analysis predicts that wh in situ is to be expected, since it is part of the same register – grammar – as the wh est-ce que. This article provides ample empirical evidence, and it represents a first step towards a cleft-like analysis of French wh interrogatives.
Published online: 17 December 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.333.21tai
References

References

Ayres-Bennet, Wendy
2004 Sociolinguistic Variation in Seventeenth-Century France: Methodology and case studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Belletti, Adriana
2005 “Answering with a Cleft: The role of the null subject parameter and the VP periphery”. Proceedings of the XXX Incontro di Grammatica Generativa . Venezia: Cafoscarina.
Boeckx, Cedric
1999 “Decomposing French Questions”. Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Penn Linguistics Colloquium ed. by Jim Alexander, Na-Rae Han & Michelle Minnick Fox. University of Pennsylvania Working papers in linguistics 6:1.69–80.Google Scholar
Bouchard, Jacynthe
2007 Les constructions c’est…qui/que en ancien et moyen français. M.A. dissertation, Université du Québec à Montréal.
Brunot, Ferdinand
1966 [1905–1938] Histoire de la langue française des origines à nos jours. 11 vol. Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Buridant, Claude
2000 Grammaire nouvelle de l ’ ancien français. Paris : Sedes.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam
1995 The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Clech-Darbon, Anne & Georges Rebuschi
1999 “Are there Cleft Sentences in French?” The Grammar of Focus ed. by Georges Rebuschi & Laurice Tuller, 83–118. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Johns Benjamin. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Peter, Gabriella Hermon & Norhaida Aman
1999 “Clefted Questions in Malay”, Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved from http://​citeseerx​.ist​.psu​.edu​/viewdoc​/download;jsessionid​=63FBDD24C238954C25C21717F2D67DC9​?doi​=10​.1​.1​.160​.7036​&rep​=rep1​&type​=pdf
Druetta, Ruggero
2002 “ Qu’est-ce tu fais? État d’avancement de la grammaticalisation de est-ce que. Première Partie ”. Linguae etc. 2.67–88.Google Scholar
2003 “ Qu’est-ce tu fais? État d’avancement de la grammaticalisation de est-ce que. Deuxième Partie ”. Linguae etc. 1.21–35.Google Scholar
Elsig, Martin
2008 “Variability within the French Interrogative System: A diachronic perspective”. Language Contact and Contact Languages ed. by Peter Siemund & Noemi Kintana, 135–162. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2009 Grammatical Variation across Space and Time: The French interrogative system. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Étienne, Eugène
1980 [1895] Essai de grammaire de l ’ ancien français (IXe-XIVe siècles). Geneva: Slatkine Reprints.Google Scholar
Gilliéron, Jules & Edmond Edmont
1968 [1902–1910] Atlas linguistique de la France. Paris: Champion.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, John
1981 “The Structure of wh-Questions in Igbo”. Linguistic Analysis 7.367–393.Google Scholar
Hamlaoui, Fatima
2007 “French Cleft Sentences and the Syntax-Phonology Interface”. Proceedings of the 2007 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association , 1–11 [http://​homes​.chass​.utoronto​.ca​/~cla​-acl​/actes2007​/Hamlaoui​.pdf].
Kaiser, Egbert
1980 Strukturen der Frage im Französischen: Synchronische und diachronische Untersuchugen zur direkten Frage im Französischen des 15. Jahrhunderts (1450-1500). Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Google Scholar
Kunstmann, Pierre
1990 Le relatif-interrogatif en ancien français. Geneva: Librairie Droz.Google Scholar
Marchello-Nizia, Christiane
1997 La langue française aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Paris: Nathan.Google Scholar
Mathieu, Éric
1999 “French WH in situ and the Intervention Effect”. UCL Working Papers in Linguistics 11.441–472.Google Scholar
2004 “The Mapping of Form and Interpretation: The case of optional wh-movement in French”. Lingua 114.1090–1132. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Muller, Claude
2002 “Clivées, coréférence et relativation”. Traits d’union ed. by Georges Kleiber & Nicole Le Querler, 17–32. Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen.Google Scholar
Partee, Barbara
1975 “Montague Grammar and Transformational Grammar”. Linguistic Inquiry 6.203–300.Google Scholar
Paul, Ileana
2001 “Concealed Pseudo-clefts”. Lingua 111.707–727. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana
1989 “The Care and Handling of a Mega-corpus”. Language Change and Variation ed. by Ralph W. Fasold & Deborah Schiffrin, 411–451. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana & Anne St-Amand
2007 “A Real-time Window on 19th Century Vernacular French: The Récits du français québécois d’autrefois”. Language in Society 36.707–734. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Roberge, Yves & Sandrine Tailleur
2010 “Les interrogatives partielles revisitées”. Paper presented at Colloque international Les français d’ici, ACFAS 2010, University of Montreal, May 12–14.
Rouquier, Magali
2002 “Les interrogatives en ‘qui/qu’est-ce qui/que’ en ancien français et en moyen français”. Cahiers de Grammaire 27.97–120.Google Scholar
2007 “Les constructions clivées en ancien français et en moyen français”. Romania 125.167–212.Google Scholar
Rowlett, Paul
2007 The Syntax of French. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Shlonsky, Ur
2009 “Notes on Wh In Situ in French”. To appear in A Festschrift for Guglielmo Cinque ed. by Laura Brugè et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tailleur, Sandrine
2009 “What is que c’est que c’est? The paradigm of wh- questions in Quebec French”. Ms., University of Toronto.
Travis, Lisa
1984 Parameters and Effects of Word Order Variation. Ph.D. dissertation,MIT.
Tuaillon, Gaston
1975 “Analyse syntaxique d’une carte linguistique: ALF 25: Où vas-tu? ”. Revue de linguistique romane 38.79–96.Google Scholar
Zribi-Hertz, Anne
2011 “Pour un modèle diglossique de description du français: quelques implications théoriques, didactiques et méthodologiques”. Journal of French Language Studies 21.231–256. CrossrefGoogle Scholar