Pourquoi in Spoken French
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Lindsy L. Myers
Abstract
WH-Interrogatives in spoken French are exceptional due both to the diversity of syntactic forms available to express the same propositional content (Coveney 1996) as well as the parameters that influence their use. The causal interrogative adverb pourquoi ‘why’ has a notably deficient paradigm (Korzen 1985), as is seen in its incompatibility with stylistic inversion and in situ structures. In this chapter, all instantiations of pourquoi in a corpus of casual conversations, whether interrogative or not, are first categorized according to discourse function(s) and then mapped to structures. This usage-driven, discourse approach successfully narrows the number of observed forms per function and also further distinguishes them by integrating discourse markers and negation.
Abstract
WH-Interrogatives in spoken French are exceptional due both to the diversity of syntactic forms available to express the same propositional content (Coveney 1996) as well as the parameters that influence their use. The causal interrogative adverb pourquoi ‘why’ has a notably deficient paradigm (Korzen 1985), as is seen in its incompatibility with stylistic inversion and in situ structures. In this chapter, all instantiations of pourquoi in a corpus of casual conversations, whether interrogative or not, are first categorized according to discourse function(s) and then mapped to structures. This usage-driven, discourse approach successfully narrows the number of observed forms per function and also further distinguishes them by integrating discourse markers and negation.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Acknowledgements xv
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Part I. Grammatical constructions
- The information structure of ditransitives 3
- Non-promotional passives and unspecified subject constructions 17
- On the relationship between sentence focus category, subject-verb order, and genericity 39
- Frames and the interpretation of omitted arguments in English 57
- Interactional frames and grammatical constructions 87
- Topics at the left periphery in Russian 109
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Part II. Topics in French Grammar
- Final compression in French as a phrasal phenomenon 133
- Pourquoi in Spoken French 157
- Processing constraints and information structure as moderating factors on first- and second-language use of the causal conjunction parce que 183
- Contrasting c'est -clefts and it-clefts in discourse 199
- Left dislocation in French 223
- Index 241
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction vii
- Acknowledgements xv
-
Part I. Grammatical constructions
- The information structure of ditransitives 3
- Non-promotional passives and unspecified subject constructions 17
- On the relationship between sentence focus category, subject-verb order, and genericity 39
- Frames and the interpretation of omitted arguments in English 57
- Interactional frames and grammatical constructions 87
- Topics at the left periphery in Russian 109
-
Part II. Topics in French Grammar
- Final compression in French as a phrasal phenomenon 133
- Pourquoi in Spoken French 157
- Processing constraints and information structure as moderating factors on first- and second-language use of the causal conjunction parce que 183
- Contrasting c'est -clefts and it-clefts in discourse 199
- Left dislocation in French 223
- Index 241
