Cover not available
Part of
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. 49–64

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
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Not-at-issueness of puisque-clauses
    • 1.1Answer to question under discussion
    • 1.2Challengeability
    • 1.3Non-focusability
  • 2.Two types of projective content
    • 2.1Projection
    • 2.2Strong contextual felicity constraint
    • 2.3Obligatory local effect
  • 3.Two sources of not-at-issueness
    • 3.1Syntactic source (the puisque-implication)
    • 3.2Lexical source (the B-implication)
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.16.04cha
References
Abrusan, Márta
2016 “Presupposition Cancellation: Explaining the ‘Soft–Hard’ Trigger Distinction.” Natural Language Semantics 24: 165–202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Amaral, Patrícia, Craige Roberts, and E. Allyn Smith
2007 “Review of The Logic of Conventional Implicatures by Chris Potts.” Linguistics and Philosophy 30: 707–749. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anand, Pranav, and Valentine Hacquard
2013 “Epistemics and Attitudes.” Semantics and Pragmatics 6 (8): 1–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beaver, David
2010 “Have you Noticed that Your Belly Button Lint Colour is Related to the Colour of Your Clothing?” In Presuppositions and Discourse: Essays Offered to Hans Kamp, ed. by R. Bäuerle et al., 65–99. Bingley: Emerald. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chierchia, Gennaro, and Sally McConnell-Ginet
1990 Meaning and Grammar: An Introduction to Semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, Guglielmo
1999 Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ducrot, Oswald
1983 “ Puisque: essai de description polyphonique.” Revue Romane 24: 166–185.Google Scholar
Faller, Martina
2002 “Semantics and Pragmatics of Evidentials in Cuzco Quecha.” PhD dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford.
Groupe λ-1
1975 “Car, parce que, puisque.” Revue Romane 10: 248–280.Google Scholar
Haegeman, Liliane, and Virginia Hill
2013 “The Syntacticization of Discourse.” In Syntax and its Limits, ed. by Raffaella Folli, Robert Truswell, and Christina Sevdali, 370–390. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnston, Michael James Robert
1994 “The Syntax and Semantics of Adverbial Adjuncts.” PhD dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz.
Karttunen, Lauri
1974 “Presuppositions and Linguistic Context.” Theoretical Linguistics 1: 181–194. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 “Presupposition: What Went Wrong?.” In Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 26, ed. by M. Moroney et al., 705–731. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.Google Scholar
Kratzer, Angelika
2006 “Decomposing Attitude Verbs.” Talk given at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem .
Krifka, Manfred
2014 “Embedding Illocutionary Acts.” In Recursion: Complexity in Cognition, 59–87. Springer International Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Murray, Sarah
2010 “Evidentiality and the Structure of Speech Acts”. PhD dissertation, Rutgers University, New Brunswick.Google Scholar
Roberts, Craige
1996 “Information Structure in Discourse: Towards an Integrated Formal Theory of Pragmatics.” Working Papers in Linguistics 49: Papers in Semantics. Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Rutherford, William
1970 “Some Observations Concerning Subordinate Clauses in English.” Language 46: 97–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sæbø, Kjell Johan
1991 “Causal and Purposive Clauses.” In Semantik – Semantics. Ein Internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung – An International Handbook of Contemporary Research (HSK 6), ed. by Arnim von Stechow, and Dieter Wunderlich, 623–631. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2016 “Information Structure and Presupposition.” In The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure, Chapter 7.Google Scholar
Scheffler, Tatjana
2008 “Semantic Operators in Different Dimensions.” PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Simons, Mandy, Judith Tonhauser, David Beaver, and Craige Roberts
2010 “What Projects and Why.” In Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT) 20, ed. by Nan Li, and David Lutz, 309–327. Ithaca, NY: CLC.Google Scholar
Speas, Margaret
2004 “Evidentiality, Logophoricity and the Syntactic Representation of Pragmatic Features.” Lingua 114: 255–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Speas, Margaret, and Carol Tenny
2003 “Configurational Properties of Point of View Roles.” In Asymmetry in Grammar, ed. by Anna Maria DiSciullo, 315–344. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tonhauser, Judith
2012 “Diagnosing (not-)at-Issue Content.” Semantics of Under-represented Languages in the Americas (SULA) 6: 239–254.Google Scholar
Tonhauser, Judith, David Beaver, Craige Roberts, and Mandy Simons
2013 “Toward a Taxonomy of Projective Content.” Language 89 (1): 66–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
von Fintel, Kai
2004 “Would You Believe it? The King of France is Back! Presuppositions and Truth Value Intuitions.” In Descriptions and Beyond, ed. by Marga Reimer, and Anne Bezuidenhout, 315–341. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
von Fintel, Kai, and Anthony S. Gillies
2010 “Must… Stay… Strong!.” Natural Language Semantics 18 (4): 351–383. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Angantýsson, Ásgrímur & Łukasz Jędrzejowski
2023. Chapter 7. Layers of subordinate clauses. In Micro- and Macro-variation of Causal Clauses [Studies in Language Companion Series, 231], ► pp. 184 ff. DOI logo
BADAN, LINDA & LILIANE HAEGEMAN
2022. The syntax of peripheral adverbial clauses. Journal of Linguistics 58:4 ► pp. 697 ff. DOI logo
Charnavel, Isabelle
2019. Chapter 5. Point of view on causal clauses. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 15 [Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory, 15], ► pp. 94 ff. DOI logo
Haegeman, Liliane & Manuela Schönenberger
2023. The External Syntax of Conditional Clauses. In Conditionals [Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition, ], ► pp. 275 ff. DOI logo
Jędrzejowski, Łukasz & Constanze Fleczoreck
2023. Chapter 2. Adverbial clauses and their variation. In Micro- and Macro-variation of Causal Clauses [Studies in Language Companion Series, 231], ► pp. 15 ff. DOI logo
Schönenberger, Manuela & Liliane Haegeman
2023. Chapter 5. English rationale since and a reassessment of the typology of adverbial clauses. In Micro- and Macro-variation of Causal Clauses [Studies in Language Companion Series, 231], ► pp. 129 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.