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Part of
Existential Constructions across Languages: Forms, meanings and functions
Edited by Laure Sarda and Ludovica Lena
[Human Cognitive Processing 76] 2023
► pp. 284–300

Chapter 9
Is the French verb manquer ‘lack, miss’ a negative existential predicate?

| Université de Lille, UMR 8163

This study treats French existential manquer ‘to lack’ as a positive predicate. I identify two syntactic constructions: a “locative alternating” one and an impersonal one (with a personal variant). I argue that the argument determiner constraints of manquer in the first construction can be explained by postulating an incorporated quantifier. The same assumption is valid for the second construction in spite of its explicit quantifier. Both constructions assert existence, but the existence in insufficient quantity (in reference to a norm), the inexistence / absence being a borderline case of insufficiency. The two constructions differ in that the second one, where manquer appears in the impersonal construction, adds to the simple idea of quantitative insufficiency the exact measure of the quantitative inferiority.

Keywords: absence, abundance, impersonal, (in)sufficiency, locative, quantifier
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Manquer in alternating constructions
    • 2.1Manquer de, and manquer à / dans
    • 2.2Manquer1 and abonder
    • 2.3Manquer1 and manquer2
    • 2.4Manquer and the notion of insufficiency
      • 2.4.1Insufficiency and norm
      • 2.4.2Existence and completeness
      • 2.4.3Vague vs precise insufficiency
  • 3.Conclusion: Manquer as a positive existential predicate and a negative abundance predicate
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 5 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.76.09van
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