Formal Approaches to Semantic Microvariation: Adverbial ...

As first noticed by Obenauer (1976), the movement of combien can be blocked by a
quantificational adverb, such as beaucoup.
(30) *Combien as-tu beaucoup lu de livres?
how many have you a lot read of books
beaucoup does not block the movement of an entire QP when combien is adnominal.
(31) Combien de livres as-tu beaucoup lus?
how many of books have you a lot read
‘How many books did you read a lot?’
Rizzi (1990; 2001) proposes that the ‘intervention’ effect that beaucoup has on combien
is a due to Relativized Minimality (RM), a fundamental constraint on the possible
structures of human language. While the original definition of RM appears in Rizzi’s
(1990) monograph of the same name, in this thesis, I adopt his revised version from
2001. The first notion that is important in Rizzi’s theory is that of a Minimal Configuration.
(32) Y is in a Minimal Configuration (MC) with X iff there is no Z such that
(i) Z is of the same structural type as X, and
(ii) Z intervenes between X and Y (Rizzi (2001: 90))
Chains between different copies of the same element (i.e. movement chains) are defined
with respect to MCs.
(33) (A 1 ,...A n ) is a chain iff, for 1 ≤ i < n
(i) A i = A i+1
(ii) A i c-commands A i+1
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