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Chapter 9. Is the French verb manquer ‘lack, miss’ a negative existential predicate?

  • Danièle Van de Velde✝
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Existential Constructions across Languages
This chapter is in the book Existential Constructions across Languages

Abstract

This study treats French existential manquer ‘to lack’ as a positive predicate. I identify two syntactic constructions: a “locative alternating” one and an impersonal one (with a personal variant). I argue that the argument determiner constraints of manquer in the first construction can be explained by postulating an incorporated quantifier. The same assumption is valid for the second construction in spite of its explicit quantifier. Both constructions assert existence, but the existence in insufficient quantity (in reference to a norm), the inexistence / absence being a borderline case of insufficiency. The two constructions differ in that the second one, where manquer appears in the impersonal construction, adds to the simple idea of quantitative insufficiency the exact measure of the quantitative inferiority.

Abstract

This study treats French existential manquer ‘to lack’ as a positive predicate. I identify two syntactic constructions: a “locative alternating” one and an impersonal one (with a personal variant). I argue that the argument determiner constraints of manquer in the first construction can be explained by postulating an incorporated quantifier. The same assumption is valid for the second construction in spite of its explicit quantifier. Both constructions assert existence, but the existence in insufficient quantity (in reference to a norm), the inexistence / absence being a borderline case of insufficiency. The two constructions differ in that the second one, where manquer appears in the impersonal construction, adds to the simple idea of quantitative insufficiency the exact measure of the quantitative inferiority.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Funding vii
  4. Contributors ix
  5. Chapter 1. Existential constructions 1
  6. Part I. Existence and related constructions
  7. Chapter 2. Existential predication and have-possessive constructions in the languages of the world 34
  8. Chapter 3. Impersonal existence in the weather domain 68
  9. Part II. Existence and information structure
  10. Chapter 4. Pure existentials vs. pure presentationals 102
  11. Chapter 5. Presentational clefts, existentials and information structure 139
  12. Chapter 6. On a continuum from categorical to thetic judgment 180
  13. Part III. Existence and quantification
  14. Chapter 7. The Finnish existential clause 220
  15. Chapter 8. Partition and existence 245
  16. Part IV. Existence and negation
  17. Chapter 9. Is the French verb manquer ‘lack, miss’ a negative existential predicate? 284
  18. Chapter 10. ‘To be’ and its negation in Latvian 301
  19. Chapter 11. Words also exist in a world 325
  20. Index 347
  21. Language index 352
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.76.09van

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Funding vii
  4. Contributors ix
  5. Chapter 1. Existential constructions 1
  6. Part I. Existence and related constructions
  7. Chapter 2. Existential predication and have-possessive constructions in the languages of the world 34
  8. Chapter 3. Impersonal existence in the weather domain 68
  9. Part II. Existence and information structure
  10. Chapter 4. Pure existentials vs. pure presentationals 102
  11. Chapter 5. Presentational clefts, existentials and information structure 139
  12. Chapter 6. On a continuum from categorical to thetic judgment 180
  13. Part III. Existence and quantification
  14. Chapter 7. The Finnish existential clause 220
  15. Chapter 8. Partition and existence 245
  16. Part IV. Existence and negation
  17. Chapter 9. Is the French verb manquer ‘lack, miss’ a negative existential predicate? 284
  18. Chapter 10. ‘To be’ and its negation in Latvian 301
  19. Chapter 11. Words also exist in a world 325
  20. Index 347
  21. Language index 352
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