On the comparative analysis of French (ne) … que exceptives

Abstract

AbstractThis article takes a close look at recent proposals that French(ne) … queexceptives are hidden comparatives involving two silent elements: a covert n-word and a phonologically unrealizedautre‘other’ introducing a partially elided comparative clausal standard headed byque‘than’. I show that assuming the constant presence of an n-word in the exceptive construction allows us to provideinter aliaa scopal treatment of the fact that(ne) … queexceptives in modal contexts are systematically ambiguous between an exclusive reading and a minimal sufficiency reading. As regards the comparative analysis of exceptives, I demonstrate that while the locality of association problem raised by (Homer. 2015.Ne … queand its challenges. In Ulrike Steindl, Thomas Borer, Huilin Fang, Alfredo García Pardo, Peter Guekguezian, Brian Hsu, Charlie O’Hara & Iris Chuoying Ouyang (eds.),Proceedings of the 32nd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 111–120. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.) can be resolved by assuming that in French, the standard of comparatives can be clausal or just nominal, the fact that(ne) … quedisplays a lexically-encoded, conventionalized meaning dependency on focus that is absent from its alleged comparative maximal phonological realization casts some serious doubt on the viability of the comparative analysis of French exceptives. Finally, I examine a number of contexts in which the n-word component of(ne) … quemust be overt and argue that this constraint follows from the Intonational Phrase Edge Generalization.