Formal Approaches to Semantic Microvariation: Adverbial ...

3.3.3 Summary
In the study of the evolution of split DPs in the history of French, we have observed
that in, Middle French, QAD was possible from both a VP peripheral position and a TP
peripheral position. I showed that these are both positions for the adverbs beaucoup
and peu that are independently possible in the language. The coincidence between
the positions available for beaucoup in adverbial and split constructions, combined the
fact that beaucoup can quantify over objects in existential split constructions, suggests
that it is at this point in the language that a process of semantic widening took place in
the domains of the degree quantifiers, and that is what gave rise to QAD structures of
the form found in Modern Québec French.
I hypothesized that this widening was due to the loss of V2 from OF to the end
of MF. When the grammar changed during the Middle French period to a non V2
grammar, MF lost the ability to topicalize beaucoup. Thus the two homophonous
degree quantifiers that could occupy the first position in the sentence were neutralized
into a single adverbial quantifier with a large domain.
Additionally, this study has informed us on the source of dialectal variation between
Québec French and Standard French. Since QAD is possible in existential sentences
in MF, we know that this language did not have a multiplicity of events requirement.
Therefore, it seems safe to conclude that it was the more complex unreducible
binary quantifier that developed out of a unary one. This result is of interest to a theory
of semantic change, since, in other areas of language change, change is often viewed
as a simplifying process.
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