Formal Approaches to Semantic Microvariation: Adverbial ...

a. ...parce qu’une longue bibliographie donne l’air intelligent
...because a long bibliography gives the air intelligent
‘...because a long bibliography makes one look smart’
b. *...notamment, Kayne (1975), Milner (1978), Rizzi (1990), et de Swart
...notably Kayne (1975), Milner (1978), Rizzi (1990), and de Swart
(1991)
(1991)
*‘...notably Kayne (1975), Milner (1978), Rizzi (1990), and de Swart
(1991)’
Boivin (1999) argues that the scopal inertia of the de phrases is due to the fact that,
since de is a ‘deficient’ determiner with respect to case, the quantifier beaucoup must
move into a functional projection above the VP to check its case. Since the de phrases
themselves cannot move to this higher case position, they cannot get out of the VP, so
they cannot take scope over anything.
2.1.2 Adverbial Analyses
Although the facts presented above suggest that notions like locality play a role in
QAD, as we will see in the next section, there are many arguments in the literature
against a movement analysis of QAD. I review these arguments and conclude that, not
only is beaucoup base-generated as a VP adverb in this construction, the quantification
in Standard French QAD is really a form of eventive quantification.
2.1.2.1 The Class of QAD Quantifiers
The first argument against a movement analysis is given by Kayne (1975). As Kayne
points out the following generalization about the class of QAD quantifiers.
(13) The adnominal quantifiers that participate in the QAD construction are exactly
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