Formal Approaches to Semantic Microvariation: Adverbial ...

2.1.3.1 The Empty Category Analysis
In this section, I present the analysis featured most prominently in the many articles of
Obenauer (1983; 1984; 1994): the Empty Category analysis. Roughly, the EC analysis
can be stated as follows,
(39) The EC Analysis:
de phrases contain an empty category, which must be bound by a quantifier.
In a QAD sentence, the adverb beaucoup binds the empty category inside the
de phrase.
The EC analysis is suggested by Kayne (1975), and adopted by Azoulay-Vicente
(1989), Kayne (1981), Rizzi (1990), and Obenauer (1994). In this paper, I will present
the most recent version of this analysis, the one from Obenauer’s 1994 thèse d’état.
Obenauer proposes that beaucoup, being an iterative quantifier, always binds an
empty category, call it P1, inside the VP. Thus, in its purely adverbial use in the SPEC
of V’, beaucoup is licensed in the structure in (40).
(40) [ V P beaucoup...P1...] (Obenauer (1994: 101, his (117)))
In a QAD sentence, however, Obenauer proposes, following Azoulay-Vicente (1989),
that beaucoup binds the empty category inside the de phrase. This accounts for the fact
that the de phrase must be c-commanded by an appropriate quantifier. To account for
the fact that de phrases are only possible in direct object position, he proposes the
following restriction on the ‘extended chain’ that links the quantifier and the empty
category in the de phrase.
(41) Seuls les arguments (internes) de V peuvent entrer dans une “chaîne étendue”
(Obenauer (1994: 133, his (52)))
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