Jaume Solà i Pujols - Departament de Filologia Catalana ...

for interpretation, in that it allows 'referential emphasis'. The ec accompanying the floating
element is, however, a an empty anaphor. Therefore, we could argue that a) these floating
elements cannot add referential emphasis to a non-referential DP by S-structure, and b) empty
anaphors, even if bound by a non-referential DP, count as referential.
Thus, it is likely that our initial idea that English has overt anaphoric I-subjects may be
false: a null anaphor is always involved. This fact, however, does not falsify the generalization 0,
which predicts that I-subjects for non-NSLs have to be anaphoric: in those languages, non-null I-
subjects may be anaphoric either as overt anaphors (this is the case in French, as we will see), or
as null anaphors with a floating emphatic element (Germanic languages). In West Flemish, 43 the
claim that the emphatic element is a floating one, and not a full anaphor itself, is even more
obvious than in other Germanic languages, because the SELF element (zelve) is not used in
reflexive constructions (where the reflexive element is zen eigen 'his own' or a weak pronominal
is used). Like in German, zelve is an emphasizer that can be adjoined to a DP:
(61) a. da Jan zelve t-eten gisteren nie gekookt eet
that J. SELF the-food yesterday not cooked has
'... that Jan himself didn't cook the meal yesterday'
b. da Jan t-eten gisteren nie zelve gekookt eet
that J. the food yesterday not SELF cooked has
'... that Jan didn't cook the meal himself yesterday'
Now let us consider French in the light of the preceding analysis. Are French I-subjects
43 Thanks to L. Haegeman for the examples and the discussion.
Like in other Germanic languages, the floating element zelve in
West Flemish appears not only in a low (VP) position (to the
right of negation and preceding the participle), but in
positions more to the left (thus higher). If it is a floating
element, as we contend, and subject raising is not in one step,
it would be possible for the floating element to be left
floating at any of the intermediate steps, as we suggested for
Danish and other Germanic languages.
1