Formal Approaches to Semantic Microvariation: Adverbial ...

This type of analysis is argued for, or implicitly assumed, by Milner (1978), Rowlett
(1996), Boivin (1999), and Labelle & Valois (2004).
The first argument in favour of a movement analysis comes from the distribution of
de phrases. These phrases have an extremely limited distribution in argument position.
For example, they may not appear in direct object position in a sentence that does not
contain any other quantifiers.
(3) *J’ai lu de livres
I have read of books
Additionally, they may not appear in subject position.
(4) *D’enfants sont venus
of children were come
They may never appear as a surface subject, not even if they are c-commanded by
an appropriate operator at some level of representation. For example, (5) is ungrammatical,
even though presumably the de phrase has been merged within the scope of
beaucoup.
(5) *De
of
livres ont été beaucoup lus
books have been a lot read
The movement analysis explains why de phrases are licensed in QAD sentences, when
their distribution is otherwise very restricted in the language. Since, under this analysis,
the de phrase is merged into the structure as the complement of beaucoup, we do
not need to explain why the selection of a de phrase by beaucoup in a QAD sentence
appears to be non-local.
The second argument favouring a movement analysis is that QAD is a relatively
local phenomenon; that is, QAD is impossible across phrases that we know, indepen-
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