11. Apparent insubordination as discourse patterns in French
-
Jeanne-Marie Debaisieux
Abstract
In current syntactic literature, two empirical situations are typically earmarked as cases of “insubordination”. Their common trait is that, despite formal features that should technically define them as subordinate clauses (they are preceded by subordinators - a subordinating conjunction or some other appropriate morpheme), they behave in discourse like “independent sentences”. This description takes into account both formally subordinate clauses functioning as independent discourse units (Evans 2007) and peripheral subordinate clauses which display "main clause features” (Debaisieux 2013: chap 2). Our stance is that, in both cases, the concept of "insubordination" is an artefact of sentence type theory (Struckmeier and Kaiser 2015). Committed to the pioneering model of Claire Blanche-Benveniste (1990), which posits a fundamental distinction between grammatical syntax on the one hand and discourse syntax on the other, Desbaisieux (2016) has conclusively shown that, in actual fact, neither of the structures identified in the macrosyntactic paradigm as candidates for “insubordination” - peripheral clauses with main clauses features - are in anyway governed by the so-called “main clauses” with which they are combined. In this paper we deal with two types of apparent exclamative insubordinates in French introduced respectively by the subordinating conjunctions si and quand. We argue by extending syntactic dependency to discourse that both are regular syntactic patterns.
Abstract
In current syntactic literature, two empirical situations are typically earmarked as cases of “insubordination”. Their common trait is that, despite formal features that should technically define them as subordinate clauses (they are preceded by subordinators - a subordinating conjunction or some other appropriate morpheme), they behave in discourse like “independent sentences”. This description takes into account both formally subordinate clauses functioning as independent discourse units (Evans 2007) and peripheral subordinate clauses which display "main clause features” (Debaisieux 2013: chap 2). Our stance is that, in both cases, the concept of "insubordination" is an artefact of sentence type theory (Struckmeier and Kaiser 2015). Committed to the pioneering model of Claire Blanche-Benveniste (1990), which posits a fundamental distinction between grammatical syntax on the one hand and discourse syntax on the other, Desbaisieux (2016) has conclusively shown that, in actual fact, neither of the structures identified in the macrosyntactic paradigm as candidates for “insubordination” - peripheral clauses with main clauses features - are in anyway governed by the so-called “main clauses” with which they are combined. In this paper we deal with two types of apparent exclamative insubordinates in French introduced respectively by the subordinating conjunctions si and quand. We argue by extending syntactic dependency to discourse that both are regular syntactic patterns.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- Insubordination: Central issues and open questions 1
- 1. Sources and mechanisms 29
- 2. Insubordination and the contextually sensitive emergence of if-requests in Swedish and Finnish institutional talk-in-interaction 55
- 3. Adverbial semi-insubordination constructions in Swedish: Synchrony and diachrony 79
- 4. On illusory insubordination and semiinsubordination in Slavic: Independent infinitives, clause-initial particles and predicatives put to the test 107
- 5. Delimiting the class: A typology of English insubordination 167
- 6. Patterns of (in)dependence 199
- 7. Two constructions, one syntactic form: Perceptual prosodic differences between elliptical and independent <si + V indicative> clauses in Spanish 240
- 8. Does structural binding correlate with degrees of functional dependence? 265
- 9. Optative and evaluative que ‘that’ sentences in Spanish 291
- 10. When insubordination is an artefact (of sentence type theories) 320
- 11. Apparent insubordination as discourse patterns in French 349
- Index 384
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- Insubordination: Central issues and open questions 1
- 1. Sources and mechanisms 29
- 2. Insubordination and the contextually sensitive emergence of if-requests in Swedish and Finnish institutional talk-in-interaction 55
- 3. Adverbial semi-insubordination constructions in Swedish: Synchrony and diachrony 79
- 4. On illusory insubordination and semiinsubordination in Slavic: Independent infinitives, clause-initial particles and predicatives put to the test 107
- 5. Delimiting the class: A typology of English insubordination 167
- 6. Patterns of (in)dependence 199
- 7. Two constructions, one syntactic form: Perceptual prosodic differences between elliptical and independent <si + V indicative> clauses in Spanish 240
- 8. Does structural binding correlate with degrees of functional dependence? 265
- 9. Optative and evaluative que ‘that’ sentences in Spanish 291
- 10. When insubordination is an artefact (of sentence type theories) 320
- 11. Apparent insubordination as discourse patterns in French 349
- Index 384
