Cover not available
Article published In:
Interfaces in Romance: A constraint-based approach
Edited by Gabriela Bîlbîie
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes 43:1] 2020
► pp. 95–128

French subject island constraint?

A discourse-based HPSG account

| Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | Université de Paris, LLF, CNRS
| Université de Paris, LLF, CNRS

We present new experimental results (corpora and experiments) showing that extraction out of subject, compared with extraction out of object, obeys a pragmatic constraint and not a syntactic constraint. We show how such a constraint can be formalized in an HPSG grammar of French which views relative clauses, wh-questions and it-clefts as different constructions.

Keywords: island constraints, HPSG, French, relative clauses, it-clefts, questions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The subject island constraint
    • 1.2The subject island in Head-Driven Phrase-Structure Grammar
  • 2.New empirical evidence for French
    • 2.1Some French corpus data
    • 2.2Experimental data on French
  • 3.A discourse-based account
  • 4.An HPSG account of French extraction constructions
    • 4.1A lexicalist view on extraction
    • 4.2Locality constraints in HPSG
    • 4.3A classification of extraction constructions
    • 4.4Cross-classification of French relative clauses
    • 4.5 C’est clefts
  • 5.A discourse-based HPSG account
    • 5.1Encoding information structure in HPSG
    • 5.2Information structure in extractions
    • 5.3Our proposal
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 October 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00041.win
References
Abeillé, A., Clément, L. & Liégeois, L.
2019 Un corpus annoté pour le français : le French Treebank. TAL Traitement Automatique des Langues, 60(2), 19–43.Google Scholar
Abeillé, A. & Godard, D.
2007 Les relatives sans pronom relatif. In M. Abecassis, Ed., Le francais parlé, Normes et variations, p. 37–60. L’Harmattan.Google Scholar
Abeillé, A., Godard, D. & Sabio, F.
2008 Two types of NP preposing in French. In S. Müller, Ed., The Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, p. 306–324, Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Abeillé, A., Hemforth, B. & Winckel, E.
2016 Les relatives en dont du français: études empiriques. In F. Neveu, G. Bergounioux, M.-H. Côté, J.-M. Fournier, L. Hriba & S. Prévost, Eds., 5e Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française, volume 27 of SHS Web of Conferences.Google Scholar
Abeillé, A. & Godard, D.
1997 The syntax of French negative adverbs. In D. Forget, P. Hirschbuhler & M.-L. Rivero, Eds., Negation and Polarity. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 The syntactic structures of French auxiliaries. Language, 721, 404–452. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Abeillé, A., Hemforth, B., Winckel, E. & Gibson, E.
2020a Extraction from subjects: Differences in acceptability depend on the discourse function of the construction. Cognition. 2041, Article 104293. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020b Subject island: PP extraction depends on the construction. Poster at the 33rd Annual CUNY Sentence Processing Conference hosted virtually by the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. URL = [URL]
Abeillé, A. & Winckel, E.
2020 French subject island? Empirical studies of dont and de qui . Journal of French Language Studies. 1–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aguila-Multner, G. & Crysmann, B.
2020 French clitic climbing as periphrasis. In G. Bîlbîie, Ed., Interfaces in Romance: a constraint-based approach. (This volume) DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ambridge, B. & Goldberg, A.
2008 The island status of clausal complements: evidence in favor of an information structure explanation. Cognitive Linguistics, 19(3), 349–381. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bianchi, V. & Chesi, C.
2014 Subject islands, reconstruction, and the flow of the computation. Linguistic Inquiry, 45(4), 525–569. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bîlbîie, G.
2017 Grammaire Des Constructions Elliptiques: Une étude comparative des phrases sans verbe en roumain et en français. Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Bîlbîie, G. & Laurens, F.
2010 Towards a non-elliptical analysis of verbless relative adjuncts. Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics, 11, 51–67.Google Scholar
Bildhauer, F.
2008 Representing Information Structure in an HPSG Grammar of Spanish. Ph.d. thesis, Universität Bremen.Google Scholar
Bonami, O., Godard, D. & Marandin, J.-M.
1999 Constituency and Word Order in French Subject Inversion. In G. Bouma, E. Hinrichs, G.-J. M. Kruijff & R. Oehrle, Eds., Constraints and Resources in Natural Language Syntax and Semantics, p. 21–40. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Bouma, G., Malouf, R. & Sag, I. A.
2001 Satisfying Constraints on Extraction and Adjunction. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 19(1), 1–65. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Branca-Rosoff, S., Fleury, S., Lefeuvre, F. & Pires, M.
2012 Discours sur la ville. Présentation du Corpus de Français Parlé Parisien des années 2000 (CFPP2000). URL = [URL]
Broekhuis, H.
2006 Extraction from subjects: some remarks on Chomsky’s “On phases”. In H. Broekhuis, N. Corver, R. Huybregts, U. Kleinhenz & J. Koster, Eds., Organizing Grammar, p. 59–68. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chaves, R.
2013 An expectation-based account of subject islands and parasitism. Journal of Linguistics, 49(2), 297–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chaves, R. P.
2012 On the grammar of extraction and coordination. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 30(2), 465–512. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chaves, R. P. & Putnam, M. T.
2020 Unbounded Dependency Constructions: Theoretical and Experimental Perspectives. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N.
1973 Conditions on transformations. In S. Anderson & P. Kiparsky, Eds., A festschrift for Morris Halle, p. 232–285, New York: Winston.Google Scholar
1986 Barriers. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
1995 The Minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cinque, G.
1990 Types of Ā-dependencies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Copestake, A.
2001 Implementing Typed Feature Structure Grammars. CSLI Lecture Notes. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Copestake, A., Flickinger, D., Pollard, C. & Sag, I.
2005 Minimal recursion semantics. Research on Language and Computation, 31, 281–332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Kuthy, K.
2002 Discontinuous NPs in German. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
2020 Information structure. In S. Müller, A. Abeillé, R. D. Borsley & J.-P. Koenig, Eds., Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar: The handbook, Empirically Oriented Theoretical Morphology and Syntax. Language Science Press. To appear.Google Scholar
Destruel, E.
2012 The French c’est-cleft: An empirical study on its meaning and use. In C. Piñon, Ed., Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics 9 (Selected papers from CSSP 2011), p. 95–112. CSSP.Google Scholar
Diesing, M.
1992 Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Doetjes, J., Rebuschi, G. & Rialland, A.
2004 Cleft sentences. In F. Corblin & H. D. Swart, Eds., Handbook of French semantics, p. 529–552. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Engdahl, E. & Vallduví, E.
1996 Information packaging in HPSG. In C. Grover & E. Vallduví, Eds., Studies in HPSG, p. 1–31, Edinburgh: Centre for Cognitive Science.Google Scholar
Erteschik-Shir, N.
1973 On the nature of island constraints. Ph.D. thesis, MIT.Google Scholar
Gallego, Á. J. & Uriagereka, J.
2007 Sub-extraction from subjects: A phase theory account. In J. Camacho, Ed., Romance linguistics 2006, p. 149–162. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ginzburg, J. & Sag, I. A.
2000 Interrogative Investigations: the form, meaning, and use of English Interrogatives. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Godard, D.
1988 La syntaxe des relatives en français. Paris: Ed. du Centre national de la Recherche Scientifique.Google Scholar
1992 Extraction out of NP in French. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 101, 233–277. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Godard, D. & Sag, I.
1996 Quels compléments de nom peut-on extraire en français? Langages, 1221, 60–79.Google Scholar
Goldberg, A.
2006 Constructions at Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2013 Backgrounded constituents cannot be extracted. In J. Sprouse & N. Hornstein, Eds., Experimental Syntax and Island Effects, p. 221–238. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldsmith, J.
1985 A principled exception to the coordinate structure constraint. In Chicago Linguistic Society. Papers from the General Session at the Twenty-First Regional Meeting, volume 11, p. 133–143.Google Scholar
Haegeman, L., Jiménez-Fernández, A. L. & Radford, A.
2014 Deconstructing the Subject Condition in terms of cumulative constraint violation. The Linguistic Review, 311, 73–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heck, F.
2009 On certain properties of pied-piping. Linguistic Inquiry, 40(1), 75–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hofmeister, P.
2011 Representational complexity and memory retrieval in language comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes, 26(3), 376–405. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hofmeister, P. & Sag, I.
2010 Cognitive constraints and island effects. Language, 86(2), 366–415. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huang, C.
1982 Logical relations in Chinese and the theory of grammar. Ph.d. thesis, MIT.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R.
1972 Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jiménez-Fernández, A.
2009 On the composite nature of subject islands: A phase-based approach. SKY Journal of Linguistics, 221, 91–138.Google Scholar
Kayne, R. S. & Pollock, J.-Y.
1978 Stylistic inversion, successive cyclicity and nove NP in French. Linguistic Inquiry, 9(4), 595–621.Google Scholar
Kehler, A.
2002 Coherence, reference, and the theory of grammar. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Kluender, R.
1991 Cognitive constraint on variables in syntax. Ph.d. thesis, University of California, San Diego.Google Scholar
2004 Are subject islands subject to a processing account? In B. Schmeiser, V. Chand, A. Kelleher & A. Rodriguez, Eds., Proceedings of the WCCFL, volume 231, p. 101–125, Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Kluender, R. & Kutas, M.
1993 Subjacency as a processing phenomenon. Language and Cognitive Processes, 81, 573–633. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kolliakou, D.
1999 De-phrase extractability and individual/property denotation. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 171, 713–781. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krifka, M.
2007 Basic notions of information structure. In G. F. Caroline Féry & M. Krifka, Eds., Interdisciplinary Studies on Information Structure (ISIS), Working Papers of the SFB 632, volume 61, p. 13–56, Potsdam: Universitätsverlag Potsdam.Google Scholar
Kuno, S.
1976 Subject, theme, and the speaker’s empathy – a reexamination of relativization phenomena. In C. N. Li, Ed., Subject and Topic, p. 417–444, New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kuroda, S.-Y.
1976 Subject. In M. Shibatani, Ed., Japanese Generative Grammar, p. 1–16. New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ladusaw, W. A.
1994 Thetic and categorical, stage and individual, weak and strong. In M. Harvey & L. Santelmann, Eds., Proceedings of SALT IV, p. 220–229, Ithaca, NY: Cornell U. DMLL.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. et al.
1986 Frame semantic control of the coordinate structure constraint. In Chicago Linguistic Society. Papers from the General Session at the Twenty-Second Regional Meeting, volume 21, p. 152–167.Google Scholar
Lambrecht, K.
1994 Information structure and sentence form : topic, focus, and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Miller, P. & Monachesi, P.
2003 Les pronoms clitiques dans les langues romanes. In D. Godard, Ed., Les langues romanes, problèmes de la phrase simple, p. 53–106. Paris: CNRS Éditions.Google Scholar
Miller, P. & Sag, I. A.
1997 French clitic movement without clitics or movement. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 151, 573–639. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moreau, M.-L.
1971  L’homme que je crois qui est venu – que, qui : relatifs et conjonction. Langue française, 111, 77–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1976 C’est : étude de syntaxe transformationnelle . Mons: Editions universitaires de Mons.Google Scholar
Müller, S.
2013 The CoreGram project: A brief overview and motivation. In D. Duchier & Y. Parmentier, Eds., Proceedings of the Workshop on High-level Methodologies for Grammar Engineering (HMGE 2013), Düsseldorf, p. 93–104.Google Scholar
Pollard, C. J.
1984 Generalized Phrase Structure Grammars, Head Grammars, and natural language. Ph.d. thesis, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Pollard, C. J. & Sag, I. A.
1994 Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Rizzi, L.
1982 Issues in Italian syntax. Dordrecht, Holland and Cinnaminson, N.J., U.S.A.: Foris Publications. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, J. R.
1967 Constraints on variables in syntax. Ph.d. thesis, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Sag, I. A.
1997 English Relative Clause Constructions. Journal of Linguistics, 33(2), 431–484. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 English filler-gap constructions. Language, 86(3), 486–545. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sag, I. A. & Godard, D.
1994 Extraction of de-Phrases from the French NP. In Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society 241, p. 519–541, Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar
Song, S.
2017 Modeling Information Structure in a cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Sportiche, D. & Bellier, P.
1989 Le mouvement syntaxique : contraintes et paramètres. Langages, 95, p. 35–80.Google Scholar
Sprouse, J., Caponigro, I., Greco, C. & Cecchetto, C.
2016 Experimental syntax and the variation of island effects in English and Italian. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 34(1), 307–344. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stepanov, A.
2007 The end of CED? Minimalism and extraction domains. Syntax, 10(1), 80–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Szabolcsi, A.
2006 Strong versus weak islands. In M. Everaert & H. van Riemsdijk, Eds., The Blackwell companion to syntax, p. 480–531. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Takami, K.
1992 Preposition Stranding: From Syntactic to Functional Analyses. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tellier, C.
1990 Subjacency and Subject Condition violations in French. Linguistic Inquiry, 21(2), 306–311.Google Scholar
1991 Licensing theory and French parasitic gaps. Dordrecht, The Netherlands and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Torrego, E.
1985 On Empty Categories in Nominals. unpublished ms., University of Massachusetts, Boston.Google Scholar
Uriagereka, J.
1988 On government. Ph.d. thesis, University of Connecticut. URL = [URL]
Uriagereka, Juan
2012 Spell-Out and the Minimalist Program. Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Valin, R. D. J.
1995 Toward a functionalist account of so-called extraction constraints. In B. Devriendt, L. Goossens & J. van der Auwera, Eds., Complex structures: A functionalist perspective, p. 26–60. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Webelhuth, G.
2007 Complex Topic-Comment Structures in HPSG. In S. Müller, Ed., The Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, p. 306–322, Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Zaenen, A.
1983 On Syntactic Binding. Linguistic Inquiry, 141, 469–504.Google Scholar