Chapter 9. French ne … que exceptives in prepositional contexts
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Jean-Marc Authier
Abstract
A common assumption in the literature is that French (ne) … que exceptives cannot appear inside a prepositional phrase. In this chapter we examine in some detail three contexts that counterexemplify this generalization. We show that in all cases, the data are consistent with the relatively recent hypothesis that (ne) … que exceptives contain a silent n-word (O’Neill 2011; Homer 2015; Authier & Reed 2019; Authier 2020). We also demonstrate that whenever an exceptive appears within a prepositional phrase, it is unable to take sentential scope. We provide three pieces of evidence that support this conclusion. First, PP-internal exceptives go hand in hand with the obligatory absence of the (optional) sentential negative scope marker ne. Second, PP-internal exceptives, unlike their PP-external counterparts, are unable to scope over modals in the clause in which they appear. Third, PP-internal exceptives, unlike their PP-external counterparts, do not license negative concord readings when they co-occur with a clause-mate n-word. These properties reveal the existence of a novel constraint that is not easily subsumed under existing theories of scope. That is, it seems that the combination of an exceptive’s quantificational component (i.e., its n-word) with its association with focus property is such that any PP that contains it acts as a scope island.
Abstract
A common assumption in the literature is that French (ne) … que exceptives cannot appear inside a prepositional phrase. In this chapter we examine in some detail three contexts that counterexemplify this generalization. We show that in all cases, the data are consistent with the relatively recent hypothesis that (ne) … que exceptives contain a silent n-word (O’Neill 2011; Homer 2015; Authier & Reed 2019; Authier 2020). We also demonstrate that whenever an exceptive appears within a prepositional phrase, it is unable to take sentential scope. We provide three pieces of evidence that support this conclusion. First, PP-internal exceptives go hand in hand with the obligatory absence of the (optional) sentential negative scope marker ne. Second, PP-internal exceptives, unlike their PP-external counterparts, are unable to scope over modals in the clause in which they appear. Third, PP-internal exceptives, unlike their PP-external counterparts, do not license negative concord readings when they co-occur with a clause-mate n-word. These properties reveal the existence of a novel constraint that is not easily subsumed under existing theories of scope. That is, it seems that the combination of an exceptive’s quantificational component (i.e., its n-word) with its association with focus property is such that any PP that contains it acts as a scope island.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
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A. Interfaces
- Chapter 1. Picard subject clitics 11
- Chapter 2. A child’s view of Romance modification 35
- Chapter 3. Definite determiners in Romance 57
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B. Bridging issues at the CP-TP-vP levels
- Chapter 4. Differential object marking, oblique morphology, and enriched case hierarchies 81
- Chapter 5. A deletion account of referential null objects in Basque Spanish 97
- Chapter 6. Same EPP, different null subject type 111
- Chapter 7. On (un)grammatical sequences of se s in Spanish 127
- Chapter 8. On the interpretation of the Spanish 1st person plural pronoun 143
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C. Bridging issues at the PP-DP levels
- Chapter 9. French ne … que exceptives in prepositional contexts 163
- Chapter 10. Interpreting reduplicated numerals in Old Ibero-Romance 177
- Chapter 11. Value and cardinality in the evaluation of bare singulars in Brazilian Portuguese 193
- Chapter 12. Formality by distance in Spanish and Catalan 207
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D. Bridging issues in linguistics
- Chapter 13. Cyclical change in affixal negation 225
- Chapter 14. Code-mixing and semantico-pragmatic resources in francophone Maine 243
- Chapter 15. Exceptionality and ungrammaticality in Spanish stress 257
- Index 273
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
-
A. Interfaces
- Chapter 1. Picard subject clitics 11
- Chapter 2. A child’s view of Romance modification 35
- Chapter 3. Definite determiners in Romance 57
-
B. Bridging issues at the CP-TP-vP levels
- Chapter 4. Differential object marking, oblique morphology, and enriched case hierarchies 81
- Chapter 5. A deletion account of referential null objects in Basque Spanish 97
- Chapter 6. Same EPP, different null subject type 111
- Chapter 7. On (un)grammatical sequences of se s in Spanish 127
- Chapter 8. On the interpretation of the Spanish 1st person plural pronoun 143
-
C. Bridging issues at the PP-DP levels
- Chapter 9. French ne … que exceptives in prepositional contexts 163
- Chapter 10. Interpreting reduplicated numerals in Old Ibero-Romance 177
- Chapter 11. Value and cardinality in the evaluation of bare singulars in Brazilian Portuguese 193
- Chapter 12. Formality by distance in Spanish and Catalan 207
-
D. Bridging issues in linguistics
- Chapter 13. Cyclical change in affixal negation 225
- Chapter 14. Code-mixing and semantico-pragmatic resources in francophone Maine 243
- Chapter 15. Exceptionality and ungrammaticality in Spanish stress 257
- Index 273
