Chapter published in:
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16: Selected papers from the 47th Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), Newark, Delaware
Edited by Irene Vogel
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 16] 2020
► pp. 50–64

French causal puisque-clauses in the light of (not)-at-issueness

| Harvard University
This paper examines the discourse status of French causal clauses introduced by puisque ‘since’. Puisque-clauses are associated with two implications: the relation expressed by puisque and the content of their clause. Several diagnostics show that neither implication is at-issue and that the two implications belong to two different types of projective content (cf. Tonhauser et al. 2013). This is due to syntactic and lexical reasons: the relation expressed by puisque is not at-issue because puisque-clauses modify high (evidential and speech act) phrases that are not at-issue; the content of the puisque-clause is not at-issue because puisque is lexically factive, i.e. selects true facts. Puisque thus exemplifies an unrecognized type of double presuppositional trigger.
Keywords: syntax/semantics, causal clauses, (not)-at-issueness, presupposition, projection, evidentiality, speech act, French
Published online: 21 August 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.16.04cha
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Charnavel, Isabelle
2019.  In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 15 [Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory, 15], ► pp. 94 ff. Crossref logo

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