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On the relationship between subject pronouns and clausal arguments

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Abstract

In Extraposition structures in many languages, a pronoun occupies the argument position to which a post-verbal clause lexically belongs. The pronoun has variously been analyzed as an expletive or as a referential pronoun and the clause as being in argument or in adjunct position. This paper examines a variety of Extraposition predicates in French in order to shed new light on the nature of the pronoun, the status of the clause, and how the two relate to each other. French uses two pronouns in Extraposition, expletiveil and referentialcela. The possibilities for extraction of Wh-phrases out of the post-verbal clauses occurring with each pronoun show that withil, the clause is in argument position, while withcela, it is in adjunct position. Furthermore, when the clause is lexically an internal argument, both pronoun + clause combinations are allowed, while onlycela + adjunct clause is possible if the clause is lexically an external argument. These generalizations provide evidence in favor of base-generating all post-verbal clauses occurring with Extraposition predicate and a conservative approach to lexical insertion and the notion of ‘chain’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. of Linguistics, Carleton College, 55057, Northfield, MN, USA

    Laurie Zaring

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  1. Laurie Zaring
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Additional information

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Julia Herschensohn, Johan Rooryck, and Linda Schwartz for feedback on early versions of this article, and to Marie Labelle, Paul Hirschbühler, Peter Culicover, Shigeru Miyagawa and J.J. Nakayama for help with more recent incarnations. Special thanks go to Johan Rooryck, Christiane Laeufer, Michel Viegne, and Dominique Froidefond for their intriguing intuitions, abundant patience, and unflagging moral support, and to Joe Emonds for his painstaking and supportive feedback. The research was supported in part by the Canadian SSHRC grant No. 410-89-118 awarded to Paul Hirschbühler.

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Zaring, L. On the relationship between subject pronouns and clausal arguments. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 12, 515–569 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01118138

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