Article published in:
Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2009: Selected papers from 'Going Romance' Nice 2009Edited by Janine Berns, Haike Jacobs and Tobias Scheer
[Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 3] 2011
► pp. 39–54
Degree fronting in Québec French and the syntactic structure of degree quantifier DPs
David-Étienne Bouchard | McGill University
Heather Burnett | UCLA
Daniel Valois | Université de Montréal
In this paper, we compare two syntactic constructions involving degree adverbs in English and Québec French: the Degree Fronting (DF) construction and the Intensification at a Distance (IAD) construction. We argue that, although they display some similar properties, these similarities are superficial. We argue that, while DF can be analyzed as involving movement, IAD cannot. We propose that the quantifiers in IAD sentences are base-generated in their surface positions, and that these syntactic positions coincide with the positions that the quantifiers occupy when they are quantifying over individuals or events. Furthermore, we argue that dialectal variation in distance quantificational structures between Standard European French and Québec French is due to differences in the semantics of degree adverbs in these dialects.
Published online: 30 November 2011
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.3.03bou
https://doi.org/10.1075/rllt.3.03bou