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Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 15: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' 30, Frankfurt
Edited by Ingo Feldhausen, Martin Elsig, Imme Kuchenbrandt and Mareike Neuhaus
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 15] 2019
► pp. 73–92

Chapter 4
At the crossroads between (semi-)free relatives and indirect questions in French

| University of Paris Diderot, LLF, Labex EFL

In this paper, we examine in some detail the syntactic properties of (semi-)free relatives in French and their ambiguity with indirect questions. Based on the results of an acceptability judgment task, we argue that object free relatives with a human referent and a full NP subject are ungrammatical in French. We then focus on free relatives with an inanimate referent and their ambiguity, often neglected in the literature: the ce que structure can be either a ‘semi-free relative clause’ (Rebuschi 2001) or an indirect question. We propose a reanalysis from ce que to skə, suggesting that ce que has undergone an incorporation process, parallel but not identical to the one which has occurred with o que in Portuguese.

Keywords: free relatives, light-headed relatives, indirect questions, syntax, labeling ambiguities, intervention effects, incorporation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Object extraction is not always the same: An experiment
    • 2.1Acceptability judgment task
    • 2.2English free relatives
  • 3.Back to French: ce que
  • 4.The ce que contruction: Towards an incorporation
    • 4.1The case of other Romance languages
    • 4.2The nature of que in ce que
    • 4.3Some diachronic facts
    • 4.4Towards an incorporation
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 9 October 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.15.04kon
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