1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Lingvisticæ Investigationes
  4. Volume 43, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 43, Issue 1
  • ISSN 0378-4169
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9927
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Summary

We present new experimental results (corpora and experiments) showing that extraction out of subject, compared with extraction out of object, obeys a pragmatic constraint and not a syntactic constraint. We show how such a constraint can be formalized in an HPSG grammar of French which views relative clauses, -questions and -clefts as different constructions.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/li.00041.win
2020-10-16
2025-04-29

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/li.00041.win
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Abeillé, A., Clément, L. & Liégeois, L.
    2019 Un corpus annoté pour le français : le French Treebank. TAL Traitement Automatique des Langues, 60(2), 19–43.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Abeillé, A. & Godard, D.
    2007 Les relatives sans pronom relatif. InM. Abecassis, Ed., Le francais parlé, Normes et variations, p.37–60. L’Harmattan.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Abeillé, A., Godard, D. & Sabio, F.
    2008 Two types of NP preposing in French. InS. Müller, Ed., The Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, p.306–324, Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Abeillé, A., Hemforth, B. & Winckel, E.
    2016 Les relatives en dont du français: études empiriques. InF. Neveu, G. Bergounioux, M.-H. Côté, J.-M. Fournier, L. Hriba & S. Prévost, Eds., 5e Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française, volume 27 of SHS Web of Conferences.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Abeillé, A. & Godard, D.
    1997 The syntax of French negative adverbs. InD. Forget, P. Hirschbuhler & M.-L. Rivero, Eds., Negation and Polarity. John Benjamins. 10.1075/cilt.155.02abe
     https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.155.02abe [Google Scholar]
  6. 2002 The syntactic structures of French auxiliaries. Language, 72, 404–452. 10.1353/lan.2002.0145
     https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2002.0145 [Google Scholar]
  7. Abeillé, A., Hemforth, B., Winckel, E. & Gibson, E.
    2020a Extraction from subjects: Differences in acceptability depend on the discourse function of the construction. Cognition. 204, Article 104293. 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104293
     https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104293 [Google Scholar]
  8. 2020b Subject island: PP extraction depends on the construction. Poster at the33rd Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference hosted virtually by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. URL = https://osf.io/ndtvw/
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Abeillé, A. & Winckel, E.
    2020 French subject island? Empirical studies of dont and de qui. Journal of French Language Studies. 1–26. doi:  10.1017/S0959269520000137
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269520000137 [Google Scholar]
  10. Aguila-Multner, G. & Crysmann, B.
    2020 French clitic climbing as periphrasis. InG. Bîlbîie, Ed., Interfaces in Romance: a constraint-based approach. (This volume) 10.1075/li.00039.agu
     https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00039.agu [Google Scholar]
  11. Ambridge, B. & Goldberg, A.
    2008 The island status of clausal complements: evidence in favor of an information structure explanation. Cognitive Linguistics, 19(3), 349–381. 10.1515/COGL.2008.014
     https://doi.org/10.1515/COGL.2008.014 [Google Scholar]
  12. Bianchi, V. & Chesi, C.
    2014 Subject islands, reconstruction, and the flow of the computation. Linguistic Inquiry, 45(4), 525–569. 10.1162/LING_a_00166
     https://doi.org/10.1162/LING_a_00166 [Google Scholar]
  13. Bîlbîie, G.
    2017 Grammaire Des Constructions Elliptiques: Une étude comparative des phrases sans verbe en roumain et en français. Language Science Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Bîlbîie, G. & Laurens, F.
    2010 Towards a non-elliptical analysis of verbless relative adjuncts. Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics, 1, 51–67.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Bildhauer, F.
    2008 Representing Information Structure in an HPSG Grammar of Spanish. Ph.d. thesis, Universität Bremen.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Bonami, O., Godard, D. & Marandin, J.-M.
    1999 Constituency and Word Order in French Subject Inversion. InG. Bouma, E. Hinrichs, G.-J. M. Kruijff & R. Oehrle, Eds., Constraints and Resources in Natural Language Syntax and Semantics, p.21–40. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Bouma, G., Malouf, R. & Sag, I. A.
    2001 Satisfying Constraints on Extraction and Adjunction. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 19(1), 1–65. 10.1023/A:1006473306778
     https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006473306778 [Google Scholar]
  18. Branca-Rosoff, S., Fleury, S., Lefeuvre, F. & Pires, M.
    2012 Discours sur la ville. Présentation du Corpus de Français Parlé Parisien des années 2000 (CFPP2000). URL = cfpp2000.univ-paris3.fr/
  19. Broekhuis, H.
    2006 Extraction from subjects: some remarks on Chomsky’s “On phases”. InH. Broekhuis, N. Corver, R. Huybregts, U. Kleinhenz & J. Koster, Eds., Organizing Grammar, p.59–68. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110892994.59
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110892994.59 [Google Scholar]
  20. Chaves, R.
    2013 An expectation-based account of subject islands and parasitism. Journal of Linguistics, 49(2), 297–344. 10.1017/S0022226712000357
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022226712000357 [Google Scholar]
  21. Chaves, R. P.
    2012 On the grammar of extraction and coordination. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 30(2), 465–512. 10.1007/s11049‑011‑9164‑y
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-011-9164-y [Google Scholar]
  22. Chaves, R. P. & Putnam, M. T.
    2020 Unbounded Dependency Constructions: Theoretical and Experimental Perspectives. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/oso/9780198784999.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198784999.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  23. Chomsky, N.
    1973 Conditions on transformations. InS. Anderson & P. Kiparsky, Eds., A festschrift for Morris Halle, p.232–285, New York: Winston.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. 1986 Barriers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. 1995 The Minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Cinque, G.
    1990 Types of Ā-dependencies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Copestake, A.
    2001 Implementing Typed Feature Structure Grammars. CSLI Lecture Notes. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Copestake, A., Flickinger, D., Pollard, C. & Sag, I.
    2005 Minimal recursion semantics. Research on Language and Computation, 3, 281–332. 10.1007/s11168‑006‑6327‑9
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s11168-006-6327-9 [Google Scholar]
  29. De Kuthy, K.
    2002 Discontinuous NPs in German. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. 2020 Information structure. InS. Müller, A. Abeillé, R. D. Borsley & J.-P. Koenig, Eds., Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: The handbook, Empirically Oriented Theoretical Morphology and Syntax. Language Science Press. To appear.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Destruel, E.
    2012 The French c’est-cleft: An empirical study on its meaning and use. InC. Piñon, Ed., Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 9 (Selected papers from CSSP 2011), p.95–112. CSSP.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Diesing, M.
    1992 Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Doetjes, J., Rebuschi, G. & Rialland, A.
    2004 Cleft sentences. InF. Corblin & H. D. Swart, Eds., Handbook of French semantics, p.529–552. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Engdahl, E. & Vallduví, E.
    1996 Information packaging in HPSG. InC. Grover & E. Vallduví, Eds., Studies in HPSG, p.1–31, Edinburgh: Centre for Cognitive Science.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Erteschik-Shir, N.
    1973 On the nature of island constraints. Ph.D. thesis, MIT.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Gallego, Á. J. & Uriagereka, J.
    2007 Sub-extraction from subjects: A phase theory account. InJ. Camacho, Ed., Romance linguistics 2006, p.149–162. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/cilt.287.12gal
     https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.287.12gal [Google Scholar]
  37. Ginzburg, J. & Sag, I. A.
    2000 Interrogative Investigations: the form, meaning, and use of English Interrogatives. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Godard, D.
    1988 La syntaxe des relatives en français. Paris: Ed. du Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. 1992 Extraction out of NP in French. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 10, 233–277. 10.1007/BF00133813
     https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00133813 [Google Scholar]
  40. Godard, D. & Sag, I.
    1996 Quels compléments de nom peut-on extraire en français?Langages, 122, 60–79.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Goldberg, A.
    2006 Constructions at Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. 2013 Backgrounded constituents cannot be extracted. InJ. Sprouse & N. Hornstein, Eds., Experimental Syntax and Island Effects, p.221–238. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139035309.012
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139035309.012 [Google Scholar]
  43. Goldsmith, J.
    1985 A principled exception to the coordinate structure constraint. InChicago Linguistic Society. Papers from the General Session at the Twenty-First Regional Meeting, volume1, p.133–143.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Haegeman, L., Jiménez-Fernández, A. L. & Radford, A.
    2014 Deconstructing the Subject Condition in terms of cumulative constraint violation. The Linguistic Review, 31, 73–150. 10.1515/tlr‑2013‑0022
     https://doi.org/10.1515/tlr-2013-0022 [Google Scholar]
  45. Heck, F.
    2009 On certain properties of pied-piping. Linguistic Inquiry, 40(1), 75–111. 10.1162/ling.2009.40.1.75
     https://doi.org/10.1162/ling.2009.40.1.75 [Google Scholar]
  46. Hofmeister, P.
    2011 Representational complexity and memory retrieval in language comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes, 26(3), 376–405. 10.1080/01690965.2010.492642
     https://doi.org/10.1080/01690965.2010.492642 [Google Scholar]
  47. Hofmeister, P. & Sag, I.
    2010 Cognitive constraints and island effects. Language, 86(2), 366–415. 10.1353/lan.0.0223
     https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.0.0223 [Google Scholar]
  48. Huang, C.
    1982 Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Ph.d. thesis, MIT.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Jackendoff, R.
    1972 Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Jiménez-Fernández, A.
    2009 On the composite nature of subject islands: A phase-based approach. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 22, 91–138.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Kayne, R. S. & Pollock, J.-Y.
    1978 Stylistic inversion, successive cyclicity and nove NP in French. Linguistic Inquiry, 9(4), 595–621.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Kehler, A.
    2002 Coherence, reference, and the theory of grammar. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  53. Kluender, R.
    1991 Cognitive constraint on variables in syntax. Ph.d. thesis, University of California, San Diego.
     [Google Scholar]
  54. 2004 Are subject islands subject to a processing account?InB. Schmeiser, V. Chand, A. Kelleher & A. Rodriguez, Eds., Proceedings of the WCCFL, volume23, p.101–125, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Kluender, R. & Kutas, M.
    1993 Subjacency as a processing phenomenon. Language and Cognitive Processes, 8, 573–633. 10.1080/01690969308407588
     https://doi.org/10.1080/01690969308407588 [Google Scholar]
  56. Kolliakou, D.
    1999 De-phrase extractability and individual/property denotation. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 17, 713–781. 10.1023/A:1006256028441
     https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006256028441 [Google Scholar]
  57. Krifka, M.
    2007 Basic notions of information structure. InG. F. Caroline Féry & M. Krifka, Eds., Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS), Working Papers of the SFB 632, volume6, p.13–56, Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Kuno, S.
    1976 Subject, theme, and the speaker’s empathy – a reexamination of relativization phenomena. InC. N. Li, Ed., Subject and Topic, p.417–444, New York, NY: Academic Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Kuroda, S.-Y.
    1976 Subject. InM. Shibatani, Ed., Japanese Generative Grammar, p.1–16. New York: Academic Press. 10.1163/9789004368835_002
     https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004368835_002 [Google Scholar]
  60. Ladusaw, W. A.
    1994 Thetic and categorical, stage and individual, weak and strong. InM. Harvey & L. Santelmann, Eds., Proceedings of SALT IV, p.220–229, Ithaca, NY: Cornell U. DMLL.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Lakoff, G.
    1986 Frame semantic control of the coordinate structure constraint. InChicago Linguistic Society. Papers from the General Session at the Twenty-Second Regional Meeting, volume2, p.152–167.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Lambrecht, K.
    1994 Information structure and sentence form : topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511620607
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620607 [Google Scholar]
  63. Miller, P. & Monachesi, P.
    2003 Les pronoms clitiques dans les langues romanes. InD. Godard, Ed., Les langues romanes, problèmes de la phrase simple, p.53–106. Paris: CNRS Éditions.
     [Google Scholar]
  64. Miller, P. & Sag, I. A.
    1997 French clitic movement without clitics or movement. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 15, 573–639. 10.1023/A:1005815413834
     https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005815413834 [Google Scholar]
  65. Moreau, M.-L.
    1971 L’homme que je crois qui est venu – que, qui : relatifs et conjonction. Langue française, 11, 77–90. 10.3406/lfr.1971.5549
     https://doi.org/10.3406/lfr.1971.5549 [Google Scholar]
  66. 1976 C’est : étude de syntaxe transformationnelle. Mons: Editions universitaires de Mons.
     [Google Scholar]
  67. Müller, S.
    2013 The CoreGram project: A brief overview and motivation. InD. Duchier & Y. Parmentier, Eds., Proceedings of the Workshop on High-level Methodologies for Grammar Engineering (HMGE 2013), Düsseldorf, p.93–104.
     [Google Scholar]
  68. Pollard, C. J.
    1984 Generalized Phrase Structure Grammars, Head Grammars, and natural language. Ph.d. thesis, Stanford University.
     [Google Scholar]
  69. Pollard, C. J. & Sag, I. A.
    1994 Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  70. Rizzi, L.
    1982 Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht, Holland and Cinnaminson, N.J., U.S.A.: Foris Publications. 10.1515/9783110883718
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110883718 [Google Scholar]
  71. Ross, J. R.
    1967 Constraints on variables in syntax. Ph.d. thesis, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
     [Google Scholar]
  72. Sag, I. A.
    1997 English Relative Clause Constructions. Journal of Linguistics, 33(2), 431–484. 10.1017/S002222679700652X
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S002222679700652X [Google Scholar]
  73. 2010 English filler-gap constructions. Language, 86(3), 486–545. 10.1353/lan.2010.0002
     https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2010.0002 [Google Scholar]
  74. Sag, I. A. & Godard, D.
    1994 Extraction of de-Phrases from the French NP. InProceedings of the North East Linguistic Society24, p.519–541, Amherst, MA: GLSA.
     [Google Scholar]
  75. Song, S.
    2017 Modeling Information Structure in a cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: Language Science Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  76. Sportiche, D. & Bellier, P.
    1989 Le mouvement syntaxique : contraintes et paramètres. Langages, 95, p.35–80.
     [Google Scholar]
  77. Sprouse, J., Caponigro, I., Greco, C. & Cecchetto, C.
    2016 Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 34(1), 307–344. 10.1007/s11049‑015‑9286‑8
     https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-015-9286-8 [Google Scholar]
  78. Stepanov, A.
    2007 The end of CED? Minimalism and extraction domains. Syntax, 10(1), 80–126. 10.1111/j.1467‑9612.2007.00094.x
     https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9612.2007.00094.x [Google Scholar]
  79. Szabolcsi, A.
    2006 Strong versus weak islands. InM. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk, Eds., The Blackwell companion to syntax, p.480–531. Oxford: Blackwell. 10.1002/9780470996591.ch64
     https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470996591.ch64 [Google Scholar]
  80. Takami, K.
    1992 Preposition Stranding: From Syntactic to Functional Analyses. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110870398
     https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110870398 [Google Scholar]
  81. Tellier, C.
    1990 Subjacency and Subject Condition violations in French. Linguistic Inquiry, 21(2), 306–311.
     [Google Scholar]
  82. 1991 Licensing theory and French parasitic gaps. Dordrecht, The Netherlands and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. 10.1007/978‑94‑011‑3596‑2
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3596-2 [Google Scholar]
  83. Torrego, E.
    1985 On Empty Categories in Nominals. unpublished ms., University of Massachusetts, Boston.
     [Google Scholar]
  84. Uriagereka, J.
    1988 On government. Ph.d. thesis, University of Connecticut. URL = https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/AAI8905987
  85. Uriagereka, Juan
    2012 Spell-Out and the Minimalist Program. Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199593521.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199593521.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  86. van Valin, R. D. J.
    1995 Toward a functionalist account of so-called extraction constraints. InB. Devriendt, L. Goossens & J. van der Auwera, Eds., Complex structures: A functionalist perspective, p.26–60. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
     [Google Scholar]
  87. Webelhuth, G.
    2007 Complex Topic-Comment Structures in HPSG. InS. Müller, Ed., The Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, p.306–322, Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
     [Google Scholar]
  88. Zaenen, A.
    1983 On Syntactic Binding. Linguistic Inquiry, 14, 469–504.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/li.00041.win
Loading
French subject island constraint?
Lingvisticæ Investigationes 43, 95 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00041.win
/content/journals/10.1075/li.00041.win
/content/journals/10.1075/li.00041.win
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): French; HPSG; island constraints; it-clefts; questions; relative clauses

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error