[non-Adj] sequences in French: Morphological negation, syntactic negation, or in-between?

This paper addresses the status and formation of [non-Adj] sequences in French, such as non occupé ‘non-occupied’, non effaçable ‘non-erasable’. These sequences can be compared to two other types of negative constructions which are built in morphology, namely [non-N]N (e.g. non occupation, non violence) and [in-Adj] (e.g. inoccupé ‘unoccupied’, ineffaçable ‘unerasable’). Taking as a starting point the observation made by Gaatone (1971, 1987) that [non-Adj] have syntactic properties which differ from that of [in-Adj], I use authentic data drawn from different corpora to determine whether [non-Adj] are formed in morphology or in syntax, and I attempt to provide a constructional account (Goldberg, 1995; Croft, 2001; Booij, 2010) of these sequences.