Phi-features and the Modular Architecture of - UMR 7023 - CNRS

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4 Person Case Constraint repairs in
French
4.1 Introduction
Chapter 3 concludes on a syntactic person hierarchy interaction in Arizona
Tewa, in which the external argument alternates between a bare and oblique DP,
according to whether it outranks the direct object on the hierarchy 1 st /2 nd > 3 rd person.
Under a similar description falls a crosslinguistically widespread class of alternations
in argument coding illustrated by French (114). 51
(114) a. Lucille la leur présentera.
b. *Lucille la présentera à elles.
c. Lucille la présentera à ELLES / aux filles.
Lucille her.A them.D will.introduce to them to.the girls
She will introduce her to them/*THEM/the girls.
d. *Lucille te/se leur présentera.
e. Lucille te/se présentera à elles.
f. Lucille te/se présentera à ELLES / aux filles.
Lucille you/SE.A them.D will.introduce to them to.the girls
Lucille will introduce you/herself to them/THEM/the girls.
In French, the coding of dative and accusative pronouns is ordinarily determined
semantic focus. If unfocussed, they are clitics attached to T+V, e.g. leur
'them.D(AT)' in (114)a vs. (114)b (henceforth in italics). If focussed, they are in
the VP, along with nonpronominal arguments, such as accusative DPs and dative à
'to' PPs, e.g. à elles 'to them' in (114)c. PPs other than dative à 'to' PPs host both
focussed and unfocussed pronouns, among them locative à 'at, to' PPs. The para-
51 In the examples, clitics are in italics; CAPS signal semantic focus; to draw attention, underline
is used for strong pronouns and bold generally; the glosses A, D, N abbreviate ACC, DAT,
NOM. The French described corresponds to Lambrecht's (1981: chapter 1) or Schwegler's (1990:
94) 'Informal (Standard) French' or 'Spoken French', an informal middle-class variety of metropolitan
France. It is a fiction. Deep splits exist within it, some pertinent here, including dativelocative
syncretisms and behaviour (notes 54, 57), dative antecedence of floating quantifiers
(note 70), deletions, gaps, and order in the clitic cluster (ex. (62), q.v. section 2.4, ex. (189),
Rezac 2010a). Yet the fiction is convenient, since on the distribution of strong dative and accusative
pronouns, I have found almost no variation. All the French data in this work have been first
either drawn from the literature and checked, or directly constructed, with the aid of a native
speaker of Nantes French, M. Jouitteau. Most were then discussed with speakers from Nantes,
Paris, Geneva, Toulouse, Brittany, and Iparralde. A questionnaire was then drawn up covering all
the key contrasts and submitted to eleven other speakers (three linguists). Variation has been
noted whenever found (for examples from the literature sometimes by % after the citation).