Word Order In French Research Articles

Word order in French: the role of animacy

A major goal of the quantitative study of syntax has been to identify factors that have predictive power on speaker choices in the face of word-order or valence alternations (e.g. Arnold et al. 2000; Bresnan et al. 2007; Bresnan & Ford 2010; Bader & Häussler 2010). In this paper, we study the role of animacy on the order of constituents in French. Animacy has been shown to affect sentence production in other languages, either directly (Feleki & Branigan 1999; Kempen & Harbusch 2004; Tanaka et al. 2011) or indirectly through grammatical role assignment (McDonald et al. 1993). Corpus studies however, have failed to find such an effect in French (Thuilier 2012a; Thuilier et al. 2014). Using a sentence recall task, we examined whether animacy has an impact on linear ordering or on grammatical function assignment. While we do find evidence for a role of animacy in the choice between active and passive voice, we do not find a preference to place animate arguments first with ditransitive verbs nor with nominal coordinations. While these findings tend to support the indirect hypothesis (McDonald et al. 1993; Kempen & Harbusch 2004), we also find what may look like an anti-animacy effect: inanimate direct objects tend to precede animate indirect objects. We propose that canonical mappings between syntactic function and semantic role play a role in putting (inanimate theme) direct objects before (animate recipient) indirect objects, thus overriding the animacy first tendency in French.

Word order in French, Spanish and Italian:A grammaticalization account

This article provides a comparative analysis of word order in Spanish, French and Italian. We first consider word order in general, and show that Spanish has all types of word order except SOV (i.e. SVO, VOS, OSV, VSO and OVS), while Italian lacks SOV and VSO, and French lacks SOV, VSO and OVS. Taking a constructional view on grammaticalization and language change, we argue that the different word order patterns can be accounted for in terms of grammaticalization. We provide evidence for a continuum from Spanish → Italian → French, Spanish being the least grammaticalized, and French the most grammaticalized language. In the second part of the article we provide further evidence for our claim by focusing on the distribution of a particular type of word order shared by all three languages, VOS, where the subject is typically narrowly focused. VOS occurs in four discourse contexts in Spanish and Italian, but it is subject to additional restrictions in Italian. In French it appears only in one of the four discourse contexts of Spanish and Italian. Our hypothesis is that this is a case of progressive grammaticalization with respect to the interface between grammatical structure (the VOS word order) and information structure. Independent evidence for our claim comes from the distribution of clefts in Romance, which are a functional variant of VOS. This phenomenon, which developed in Romance as an innovative mechanism used to narrowly focus a constituent, shows the reversed pattern as the one observed for VOS: it is most developed in French, least in Spanish while it is progressing in modern Italian.

Word order in French and the influence of topic and focus

In classical generative syntactic theory (the Principles and Parameters framework), French figures among the languages for which it has been argued that the basic way of ordering words does not reflect functional, pragmatic or discourse-informational properties such as topic and focus. In line with some more recent generative approaches that accept at least some interaction with these notions, we argue that this classical view is indeed partially incorrect because there are situations in which syntactic theory proposes word order optionality and therefore is in fact indeterminate. With respect to regular full nominal subjects, a syntactically free choice between a postverbal position and a preverbal one has been proposed for a certain array of embedded clauses. Out of these, we singled out relative clauses and subjunctive clauses for further scrutiny, i.e. cases like Le roman qu'a crit Paul / que Paul a crit (relatives) and Je veux que parte Paul / que Paul parte (subjunctives). In this paper we show that the position of the subject in these constructions should be determined by taking into account the functional/pragmatic notions of topic and focus. In particular, we demonstrate that the preverbal position calls for a Topic and the postverbal position for a Focus. However, as the array of constructions for which this position is defended, is in principle limited, we also express a view on the proper balance between the syntactic primitives and the functional ones; we suggest that topic/focus arrangement plays an important role when syntax is indeterminate.

Information structure and epistemic modality in adverbial clauses in French

In this paper it is argued that, contrary to what is often assumed, embedded adverbial clauses have an information structure articulation independent from that of the main clause. More particularly, it is shown that the specific way in which information structure is expressed in adverbial clauses depends on the possibility vs. impossibility of epistemic qualification in the adverbial clause. The claim is based on new empirical evidence concerning the distribution of a clearly information structure-driven syntactic configuration: verb-subject word order in French.

Specificational sentences and the influence of information structure on (anti-)connectivity effects

This paper argues that the difference between connectivity and anti-connectivity effects in specificational copular sentences is heavily influenced by semantics and information structure. It shows that anti-connectivity effects with respect to binding disappear when the influence of information structure is neutralized, whereas anti-connectivity effects with respect to scope result from the semantics of specificational sentences. These data lead to the conclusion that anti-connectivity effects cannot be used as evidence against a syntax-based approach to specificational sentences and binding, that the analysis of specificational sentences should include both a syntactic and a semantic device, and that the syntactic analysis of specificational sentences should rely crucially on their information structure. I present and adopt Heycock & Kroch's (2002) analysis for specificational sentences, in which connectivity effects result from the assembling of ground and focus. The fact that connectivity effects are also exhibited by verb–object–subject word order in French and Spanish, which is marked for the ground-focus partition, is presented as an important piece of independent evidence in favor of this analysis.

Beckett and "l'ordre naturel": The Universal Grammar of

A foundational myth of the clarity and precision of French prose, the theory of French word order "l'ordre naturel" grew out of Aristotelian grammars and sought its justification in Cartesian metaphysics, epistemology and physiology. Ironically, Beckett's "narrator/narrated" of uses a tattered syntax to insist that his discourse is a recitation in "the natural order" (l'ordre naturel) of the voice in his head, "the other above in the light" (l'autre dans la lumière). The aspirations of the "I" below to imitate his mysterious "ancient voice" interlace with the text's allusions to Enlightenment philosophy of mind and language, producing its unique, albeit debilitated, "geometric method."

French children's use and correction of weird word orders: A constructivist account

Using the weird word order methodology (Akhtar, 1999), we investigated children's understanding of SVO word order in French, a language with less consistent argument ordering patterns than English. One hundred and twelve French children (ages 2; 10 and 3; 9) heard either high or low frequency verbs modelled in either SOV or VSO order (both ungrammatical). Results showed that: (1) children were more likely to adopt a weird word order if they heard lower frequency verbs, suggesting gradual learning; (2) children in the high frequency conditions tended to correct the ungrammatical model they heard to the closest grammatical alternative, suggesting different models activated different grammatical schemas; and (3) children were less likely to express the object of a transitive verb than were English children in an equivalent study, suggesting object expression is more difficult to master in French, perhaps because of its inconsistency in the input. These findings are discussed in the context of a usage-based model of language acquisition.

La légèreté en français comme déficience de mobilité

We propose a new type of syntactic deficiency that we call “lightness”, which is relevant for all major syntactic categories. It applies to both words and phrases. Lightness is taken into account by different aspects of syntax (word order, extraction, adjunction sites, subcategorisation). Light forms differ from both incorporated and traditional “weak” forms, in the sense that they can be modified or coordinated. We show that lightness is relevant for French word order in the verbal domain. Light forms must be closer to the head (the verb) than other forms.

L’amas verbal au cœur d’une modélisation topologique du français

This article aims at two objectives : We want to show that principal word order phenomena can be described in a topological approach to linearization, i.e. a linking of an (unordered) dependency tree and a ordered structure, the topological constituent tree. Moreover, we want to put forward the importance and naturalness of a particular constituent in the modeling of French word order, the verb cluster (amas verbal) : It is composed of one or more verbs, of necessary functional words (prepositions and complementizers), and of very constraint lexical elements other than the verbs as for example clitics and certain adverbs. The work is based on a rigorous formalization of the dependency-topology link in Gerdes & Kahane 2001. The verb cluster in the topological structure remains to be shown to be closely related to a prosodic constituent.

Maghrebian Mosaic: A Literature in Transition

Mildred Mortimer, ed. Maghrebian Mosaic A Literature in Transition. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001. vii + 325 pp. Bibliography. Index. $59.95. Cloth. This volume focuses on Maghrebian literature of French expression in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, exploring the works of Maghrebian writers who negotiate their colonial legacy in literature. These writers, according to Mortimer, the colonizer's language as a revolutionary tool to express an ideology and aesthetics of difference (3-4). Berber speakers and writers are several times removed from a Francophone context, as is the official language of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, competing with French. The volume deals with two eras: the movement of resistance to colonialism, and the postcolonial search for identity. Especially important in these essays is the issue of cultural pluralism, which is palpable in each of the four sections dealing with identity, internality, women's views, and Algerians resident in France. In Inscribing a Maghrebian Identity in Farida Abu-Haidar examines cultural plurality in French, Arabic, and Berber contexts in both content and mode of expression. She demonstrates that the French-Arabic struggle leaves Maghrebian fiction outside the realm of a wider Western context, in which English is now the dominant language. Some Maghreb writers lack fluency in Arabic, while others Arabicize French in their writings, creating a Maghrebian French word order resembling syntax. Other authors feel free to express themselves in Arabic, unconstrained by cultural prohibitions against self-revelation inherent in the language of the Qur'an. Rachid Boudjedra's novels often appear in both languages, with versions of the novel differing according to its mode of expression: Dialogue in tends to be longer... [and] family matters are given in detail in but not in French... [while] names of well-known Europeans... are usually omitted in the Arabic (17). Abu-Haidar also cites examples of the symbolic use of colonial language in the works of several other Maghrebian authors, explaining the ways in which language depicts multiculturality and characters respond to a variety of cultural and historical influences. Richard Serrano's chapter on the novels of Rachid Boudjedra underlines the difficulty of separating culture from language; translation involves a shifting of concepts into different cultural contexts. In exploring the bilingual success of Boudjedra's French and writings, Serrano raises the crucial question of language as the key to cultural access, as a political tool, and as the determinant of personal identity. His incisive analysis of metaphors working more successfully in one language than another illuminates the cultural limitations of a range of related terms and clarifies the need in translation to create parallel multivalent images in the second language. This means that translation is effective only to the degree that the work's context is understood in the culture of each language. Translation's limits occur at the points of cultural divergence. Having understood this makes the success of Boudjedra's translations of his own French works into and works into French all the more remarkable. One hesitates to wish for an English translation after experiencing Serrano's energetic explanation of the complexity of the translation process. Boudjedra's work is described further, along with that of the Moroccan writer Abdel Kadir Khatabi, in Giles Carjuzaa's essay on the confluence of modernity and tradition. Defining tradition as what comes from within a culture and modernity as what is imposed from without, Carjuzaa offers a rich array of examples in which the Maghrebian writers draw on the past to reinterpret their contemporary circumstances, particularly in terms of women's roles, rebels' activities, and the realization of linguistic/cultural autonomy in a culture. …

Tocqueville's New Democracy

At the beginning of the twenty-first century Democracy in America (1835-1840) reverberates through US political culture with more vibrancy than at any time since its original appearance.1 Newspapers and news magazines have abundantly applied Tocqueville’s observations to our latest election crisis. As soon as it was published this new volume’s editor was immediately rewarded with an appearance on National Public Radio. Beyond its additional testimony to a culture hero’s iconic status, what does the prodigious effort involved in producing a new translation add to the fund of Tocqueville scholarship? This is the first version to appear in thirty-five years and the third since 1945.2 The editors’ aim was to make theirs the most literal of all renderings. Only in deference to 165 years of tradition did they exclude the French particle from their title (i.e. On, or Concerning, Democracy in America). The translators are implacably true to their word. This version even replicates the original French word order as closely as possible. A more quotable Tocqueville is consciously sacrificed in the name of accuracy, but the reader can be assured that this is as close to the original as we are likely to get. Very rarely, such devotion to fidelity produces jarring history. We learn, for example, that Virginia’s success as a settlement was assured by the timely arrival of “farmers and industrialists”; industriels is more aptly translated as mechanics or artisans (31).

French Word Order

French Word Order

La place du sujet non clitique dans la construction inversée

Hanne Korzen : « Positioning the non-clitic subject in inverse constructions » Hanne Korzen's article discusses a previously unsolved problem concerning the position of non-clitic subjects in sentences with inverted word order. The difference between sentences like Que dira ton frère à sa petite amie ? (acceptable) and Quand écrira ton frère à sa petite amie ? (unacceptable) seem to indicate that the nature of the clement positioned finally cannnot alone explain acceptability. Instead, an explanation may be found in the relation between the pre-verbal and the post-verbal constituent. A model is proposed to elucidate inverted word order in French and to make comparisons with related languages.

Dislocated sequences and word order in French: a processing approach

AbstractThis article reports the results of three studies dealing with dislocated sequences in French. A text count of written and spoken French reveals that word order is not entirely free in these sequences but instead obeys certain constraints. Two studies then investigate the use of cues (word order, clitic pronoun type, clitic pronoun agreement and animacy) in the interpretation of dislocated sequences by native speakers of French. Results indicate that the constraints found in the text count, with minor modifications, are also operative in processing.

AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE IN READING FRENCH

Students who wish to read French and who are willing to omit instruction in the spoken language have learned successfully by using texts that are mixtures of French and English. The texts begin with English words in French word order, and in subsequent passages a few French words are substituted for the English words. Later the proportion of French gradually rises. The method has the advantage that adult students can practice from the beginning with adult materials. They need never be subjected to the French equivalent of “Dick and Jane”. The method also allows a relatively systematic introduction of grammatical material, another advantage for the adult student, and it allows a good many aspects of the language to be absorbed relatively unconciously through extensive exposure to written matierals. Its major disadvantage is the unaesthetic appearance of the mixed texts. The method violates a number of widely held assumptions about second language instruction but reasons exist for doubting all these assumptions.

Theme, Rheme, and Word Order

SummaryHenri Weil’s thesis, published in Paris during the first half of the 19th century, is the first cogent theory of word order in European linguistics. Weil’s work is the first to argue that discourse structure has an effect on the internal structure of the sentence. His ideas are the direct ancestors of the concepts ‘psychological subject’ and ‘psychological predicate’ which so highly influenced stylistic work into the 20th century. Weil’s insights had very little direct influence on French linguistics but are the source of V. Mathesius’ ‘theme’ end ‘rheme’ and the subsequent Prague School theory of word order. This paper presents an overview of Weil’s thesis, followed by a critical evaluation, in the light of Weil’s work, of a sample of later studies on French word order. The fundamental concepts of Weil’s theory are traced into 20th-century linguistics, with particular attention to their evolution in Prague School theory. Finally, a brief survey of work in generative grammar on discourse and the sentence is presented. In conclusion it is claimed that the rediscovery in formal grammar of the role of discourse structure in shaping the internal structure of the sentence is a comtemporary confirmation of Weil’s thesis.

Problems of French Grammar and Usage: No. 19. The Position of Adjectives — II

In the preceding article, which introduced the problem of the position of adjectives and discussed it from a theoretical point of view, reference was made to the two kinds of lists present in all grammars of French: 1 ) those adjectives which normally precede, and 2) those whose meaning changes according to whether they precede or follow the noun. Examination of these lists showed that they contained certain adjectives, such as autre, meme, etc., which, in light of the general principle that intensives precede and extensives ( or distinctives) follow, could be more usefully considered as following the article rather than preceding the noun. It is thus possible, in describing the distribution of adjectival expansions within the structure of a noun phrase, to think of four basic functional zones: 1 ) intensives of the article - the article 2 ) extensives of the article - 3 ) intensives of the noun - the noun - 4) extensives of the noun: 1 ) tous - les - 2) autres - 3 ) bons - films - 4) franfais. As was pointed out, this way of analyzing French word order shows why autres will always precede bons, and it can also be useful in explaining why the meaning of an adjective

Language Translation

Language Translation

A New Order in Elementary French Grammar

Author's summary.— Modern elementary French grammar texts for college students are too condensed, and follow no logical order in presenting explanations. A logical sequence of 14 lessons, designed to help the student overcome initial difficulties in mastery of French word-order, is tabulated and described.

The Influence of Accentuation on French Word Order

The Influence of Accentuation on French Word Order