Left-detachment and topic-marking in French: The case of quant à and en fait de

Véronique Lagae

doi:10.1515/flin.41.3-4.327

Article

Left-detachment and topic-marking in French: The case of quant à and en fait de

Véronique Lagae

Published/Copyright: February 12, 2008

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From the journal Volume 41 Issue 3-4

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to compare the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic characteristics of two left-detachment constructions in French, introduced respectively by quant à and en fait de. Although both have been described as topic-marking constructions, they appear to differ substantially in each of the following parameters: the characteristics of the detached constituent, its relation to the matrix clause, and its embedding possibilities. Most of these differences can be accounted for by the fact that the detached constituent in the en fait de construction is non-referential and therefore cannot fully acquire topic status, unlike the detached nominal in the quant à construction, which is a prototypical topic-marking construction. More specifically, the quant à and en fait de constructions are shown to differ crucially in terms of two semantic attributes of topichood: addressation and frame-setting.

Key words: left-detachment; topic; reference; addressation; frame-setting

*Author's addressUniversité de Valenciennes et du Hainaut-Cambrésis, Faculté des Lettres, Langues, Arts et Sciences humaines, Campus du Mont-Houy, F-59313 Valenciennes cedex 9, France

Received: 2006-09

Revised: 2007-01

Accepted: 2007-04

Published Online: 2008-02-12

Published in Print: 2007-11-20

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https://doi.org/10.1515/flin.41.3-4.327

Keywords for this article

left-detachment; topic; reference; addressation; frame-setting