As was subsequently pointed out in Obenauer (1983: 79–80) and Doetjes (1994: 20–21), this assumption might need to be qualified in view of the fact that there are degree quantifiers that appear in canonical quantification constructions and occur independently as pre-verbal adverbs, yet do not participate in QAD.
(i)
a.
Eric
Eric
a
has
un peu
a-little
toussé
coughed
hier.
yesterday
b.
Eric
Eric
a
has
acheté
bought
[un
a
peu
little
de
of
café].
coffee
c.
*Eric
Eric
a
has
un
a
peu
little
acheté
bought
de
of
café.
coffee
The grammatical status of (ic) is, however, subject to a great deal of variation. While some speakers (including a reviewer and his/her two informants) find (ic) well-formed, my informants judgments ranged from marginally acceptable to full ungrammaticality. The same informants, however, had no trouble accepting parallel sentences like (ii).
(ii)
Ces
these
séances
sessions
de
of
kiné
physical-therapy
lui
him
ont
have
un
a
peu
little
redonné
given-back
d’autonomie.
of autonomy
Furthermore, Kayne (2002: 111) points out that even for those speakers that reject sentences like (ic), such sentences greatly improve with the addition of a purpose clause. He attributes the judgment for (iii) to Isabelle de Crouzaz.
(iii)
Il
he
avait
had
un
a
peu
little
acheté
bought
de
of
chocolat
chocolate
pour
to
lui
her
faire plaisir.
please
I have no explanation as to why this should be.
I will have little to say about Kayne’s (2002) movement analysis of QAD, illustrated in (i). I will simply note that it involves multiple functional projections and instances of Move, the evidence for which is not as clear as one might wish. K in (i) corresponds to Bayer et al.’s (2001) version of the functional head K(ase) (K is assumed to carry the feature [oblique] and may be realized by P).
(i)
TARGET:
…peu
few
acheté
bought
de
of
livres
books
DERIVATION:
…acheté [livres peu]
…K-de acheté [livres peu]
…livresi K-de acheté [[e]i peu]
…de livresi K-de acheté [[e]i peu]
…[acheté [[e]i peu]]j de livresi K-de [e]j
…[[e]i peu]k [acheté [e]k]j de livresi K-de [e]j
⇒
⇒
⇒
⇒
⇒
merger of K-de
movement of livres to Spec,K-de
merger of de
movement of VP to Spec,de
movement of [[e]i peu] higher up
A reviewer contends that there seem to be no examples of a quantifier that would appear in the nominal domain and never appear adjoined to VP except when it appears in QAD (cf. Doetjes 1997: 178). Kayne (2002: 110), however, gives the pair of examples in (i), which he attributes to Viviane Déprez. Although the judgments are not clear-cut, these also show that the parallel with VP adverbs is not perfect.
(i)
a.
(?)
Elle
she
a
has
tout
all
plein
full
acheté
bought
de
of
bouquins.
books
‘She bought plenty of books.’
b.
??
Elle
she
a
has
tout
all
plein
full
rigolé.
had-fun
‘She had plenty of fun.’
To be fair, examples like (ia) are not accepted by all speakers (half of my informants rejected them). A Google search, however, did yield the following.
(ii)
a.
…j’ai
I-have
déjà
already
plein
full
acheté
bought
de
of
trucs
stuff
là-bas…
there
‘I already bought lots of stuff there…’
b.
…car
because
j’ai
I-have
plein
full
perdu
lost
de
of
cheveux
hair
d’un
of-one
coup…
swoop
‘because I lost a lot of hair all at once…’
A reviewer points out that although s/he agrees with the judgments reported in (4–7), s/he (and consulted informants) find excessivement ‘excessively’ and à peine ‘barely’ with QAD relatively acceptable (“not so bad” is the term s/he uses) in sentences such as those in (i).
(i)
a.
Jean
Jean
a
has
excessivement
excessively
mangé
eaten
de
of
soupe.
soup
b.
Il
he
a
has
à peine
barely
dégusté
tasted
de
of
fromage.
cheese
My informants (and myself) judge these to be ungrammatical though somewhat processable. Assuming that there is dialectal variability in the judgments, the point remains there is no exact parallel between QAD degree quantifiers and pre-verbal adverbs, based on the other mismatches provided. On the other hand, it could be that sentences like (i) are ill-formed as QAD constructions yet processable by analogy with the pre-verbal adverb + partitive de-phrase combination encountered in examples like (ii), found on the internet.
(ii)
a.
Pas que j’ai excessivement bu de l’alcool quand j’étais enceinte.
‘Not that I excessively drank alcohol when I was pregnant.’
b.
Nous avons à peine mangé de ce poisson.
‘We barely ate any of that fish.’
Note additionally that both bare quantifiers and QAD degree quantifiers are compatible with degree modifiers like presque ‘almost’ in that position:
(i)
a.
Tu
you
as
have
presque
almost
tout/rien
all/nothing
mangé.
eaten
‘You ate almost everything/nothing.’
(i)
b.
J’ai
I-have
presque
almost
trop
too-much
gagné
earned
d’argent
of-money
cette
this
année.
year
‘I almost earned too much money this year.’
This parallelism between bare quantifiers and degree quantifiers in QAD might be thought to be incomplete in view of he fact that bare quantifiers, unlike beaucoup in canonical quantification constructions, are rarely spelled out in their argument position (i).
(i)
a.
*Tu
you
as
have
mangé
eaten
rien/tout.
nothing/everythging
However, as pointed out by a reviewer, there are contexts in which bare quantifiers can (though need not) appear in post-participial position, for example, when they are preceded by so-called scale adjusters like presque ‘almost’ and absolument ‘absolutely’, as in (ii).
(ii)
A:
Tu
you
as
have
tout
eveything
mangé!
eaten
‘You ate everything!’
B:
Mais
but
n’importe
anything
quoi;
j’ai
I-have
mangé
eaten
presque/absolument
almost/absolutely
rien!
nothing
‘What are you talking about? I ate almost/absolutely nothing!’
The same reviewer further notes that in some Swiss French varieties, a bare N-word like personne ‘nobody’ can, without special intonation, appear both post- and pre-participially, just like beaucoup in QAD and canonical quantification constructions.
(iii)
J’ai
I-have
(#personne)
(#nobody)
vu
seen
(personne).
(nobody)
‘I haven’t seen anyone.’
But note that the licensing of de-phrases in negative contexts displays different properties. For example, object de-phrases in QAD and object bare quantifiers first merged in the infinitival complement to a perception verb cannot involve the matrix clause, as (i) illustrates. This constraint does not, however, apply to de-phrase licensing in negative contexts, as shown in (ii). (See Doetjes 1997 and Godard 2004 for further details.)
(i)
a.
J’ai
I-have
(*beaucoup)
(*a-lot)
vu
seen
[Paul
Paul
(beaucoup)
(a-lot)
manger
to-eat
de
of
frites].
fries
‘I saw Paul eating a lot of fries.’
b.
J’ai
I-have
(*tout)
(*all)
vu
seen
[Paul
Paul
(tout)
(all)
manger].
to-eat
‘I saw Paul eat everything.’
(ii)
J’ai
I-have
pas/jamais
not/never
vu
seen
[Paul
Paul
manger
to-eat
de
of
frites].
fries
‘I haven’t/have never seen Paul eat fries.’
Given this divergence in behavior, I will not consider the negative licensing of de-phrases to be part of the QAD paradigm, contra Rowlett (1996) and Burnett (2011).
This has virtually gone unnoticed in the literature. One notable exception is Kayne (2002: 108) who, on the basis of the fact that both bare quantifiers and degree quantifiers in QAD can be accompanied by degree modifiers but not by nouns, states that “the movement of peu (similarly beaucoup, trop, énormément and others) is akin to the movement of rien.” However, he goes on to add (Kayne 2002: 110), based on the fact that the movement of rien is essentially obligatory, that “the movement of rien and that of peu might not be triggered in exactly the same way, and might not, thinking of Cinque (1999), have exactly the same landing site.” Also Doetjes (1997: chapter 8) compares bare tout/rien to so-called floating beaucoup (see example in (i)), but the latter exhibits properties that are different from those displayed by QAD beaucoup (see (ii)).
(i)
Elle
she
a
has
beaucoup
a-lot
fait
done
pour
for
eux.
them
(ii)
J’ai
I-have
beaucoup
a-lot
vu
seen
*(de films)
*(of movies)
se
end
terminer
comme
like
ça.
this
The judgments for (18a) are Kayne’s (1975: 25) and are confirmed by my informants. A reviewer disagrees and allows both positions for tout but states that s/he suspects that prosody plays a special role in the acceptability of some of the data. Presumably, for bare quantifiers to be able to climb out of such infinitives requires prosodic prominence. I leave this issue/complication for further research.
The judgments for (19) are Kayne’s (1975: 81) and are confirmed by my informants. A reviewer finds (19a–b) marginally acceptable, (19c) grammatical, and (19d) ungrammatical, but agrees with the pattern in (19) if obstinément ‘stubbornly’ is replaced with intentionnellement ‘intentionally’. The same reviewer does not accept any of the sentences in (20) with obstinément either but does get the pattern in (20) with intentionellement except for (20b) which s/he judges to not be fully grammatical. I have no explanation for this variation.
It is not entirely clear to me that this a matter of dialectal variation given that (26) and (27) are characterized by those who accept them as belonging to their “low register”.
But see Déprez (1994) for the view that in wh-question/floated universal quantifier interactions, the availability of list answers is not the result of constraints on the scope taking abilities of floated quantifiers over question terms.
A reviewer asks if the following data, discussed in Sportiche (1996), might be taken to indicate that, at least in some cases, the scope of a quantified expression is determined by the moved c-commanding quantifier head, rather than its restriction.
(i)
a.
Il
it
aurait
would-have
tous
all
fallu
been-necessary
que
that
tu
you
ne
NEG
les
them
aies
have
pas
not
vu.
seen
‘It would have been necessary that you see none of them.’
b.
Il
it
aurait
would-have
fallu
been-necessary
que
that
tu
you
ne
NEG
les
them
aies
have
pas
not
tous
all
vu.
seen
‘It would have been necessary that you do not see all of them.’
At issue is the scope of the split quantifier tous ‘all’ + les ‘them’ with respect to the embedded negation pas. As the glosses make clear, in (ia), the quantifier must have wider scope than negation, while in (ib), it is just the opposite. In both cases, the restriction les occupies the same spell-out position. What varies is the position of the quantifier head tous: in (ia) it c-commands the embedded negation, while in (ib) it does not. The reviewer’s question is therefore whether the scope facts in (i) can be accounted for by assuming that in such cases, the quantificational head alone determines scope relations. Providing a full answer to this question is clearly beyond the scope of this article as it would involve tackling two controversial issues: the syntactic analysis of pronominal clitics (movement, base generation or a combination of the two) and what determines the scope of negation (ne and/or pas; their position at spell-out or later in the derivation). If, however, one considers the spell-out position of clitics that denote the restriction of a quantifier to mark their c-command domain with respect to scope (as the reviewer’s question appears to entail) then the facts in (i) can just as easily be accommodated by assuming the theory of scope I adopt in the text; namely that the scope of a quantificational phrase is determined by both the quantifier and its restriction. Indeed, in (ia), both the quantifier and its restriction c-command negation at spell-out while in (ib), only the restriction does. This correctly predicts that the quantificational phrase should scope over negation in (ia) but not in (ib). Such an explanation, however, ignores the possible role of silent copies, the existence and/or position of which depends on one’s analysis of pronominal clitics in French.
The criterion for evaluating beaucoup with an object count noun is the number of separate objects (cardinality) but it is a global quantity of “stuff” (volume) when we have an object mass noun. Thus, if Paul ate twenty very small pieces of chocolate, (ia) is true but (ib) is false.
(i)
a.
Paul
Paul
a
has
beaucoup
a-lot
mangé
eaten
de
of
chocolats.
chocolates
‘Paul ate a lot of chocolates.’
b.
Paul
Paul
a
has
beaucoup
a-lot
mangé
eaten
de
of
chocolat.
chocolate
‘Paul ate a lot of chocolate.’
Cyr (1991) contends that Obenauer’s MER does not hold in Québec French. She gives examples like (i) to support her claim that QAD constructions with count noun objects can, in Québec French, denote a single, short event. It turns out, however, that my standard French informants accept (i) as well while rejecting (30b) and that my two Québec French informants report similar judgments for both (i) and (30b).
(i)
(Cyr 1991: 46)
En
upon
arrivant
arriving
sur
on
place,
site
on
we
a
have
tellement
so-many
vu
seen
de
of
policiers
cops
qu’on
that-we
s’est
is
demandé
wondered
ce
that
qui
which
se passait.
was-happening
‘When we got there, we say so many cops that we wondered what was going on.’
In all likelihood, en arrivant sur place ‘when we got there’ does not force a single-event reading of QAD, as Cyr assumes, as there can be several seeing events taking place at times that are close enough to the time of arrival to be considered simultaneous with it. I am therefore skeptical that there is dialectal variation with respect to MER. Nevertheless, this issue deserves further investigation.
See the discussion in note 1.
There are other contrasts that would seem to require similar assumptions, for example, the following:
(i)
a.
Christine
Christine
a
has
lu
read
beaucoup/une multitude
a-lot/a great-number
de
of
livres.
books
b.
Christine
Christine
a
has
beaucoup/*une multitude
a-lot/*a great-number
lu
read
de
of
livres.
books
However, as pointed out by a reviewer, one must take into account the fact that QAD (similarly for tout/rien) may involve more than a bare quantifier, as the following examples illustrate.
(ii)
a.
J’ai
I-have
presque trop/beaucoup trop/très peu
almost too much/way too much/too little
mangé
eaten
de
of
gâteau.
cake
‘I ate almost too much/way too much/very little cake.’
b.
Il
he
a
has
presque
almost
trop
too
peu
little
mis
put
de
of
terre
soil
pour
for
nourrir
to-nourish
toutes
all
ces
these
plantes.
plants
‘He put in almost too little soil to feed all of these plants.’
If we assume that, as the reviewer suggests, the moved constituents bolded in (ii) are not syntactic heads, we are unable to distinguish between the grammaticality of QAD in (ii) and the ungrammaticality of examples like (ib). The view that the moved constituents in (ii) are phrases rather than heads is based on the assumption that heads are terminal elements. There is, however, an alternative definition of head that has been argued for by e.g., Matushansky (2006) and Vicente (2006); namely that a head is a constituent whose internal structure is opaque for syntactic purposes. If we adopt this definition it then becomes possible to consider the bolded constituents in (ii) to be complex heads composed of a degree quantifier (e.g, trop, peu, etc.) and one (iia) or more (iib) scale adjusters (e.g., presque, très), the semantic function of which is to “adjust” the contextually determined standard of comparison. One argument in favor of this view, adapted from Kennedy and McNally (2005), is that the iteration of scale adjusters observed in (iib) must be interpreted in a right branching fashion (i.e., as in (iiia)) rather than in the left-branching fashion (iiib) a specifier analysis would seem to predict.
(iii)
a.
[presque[trop [peu]]
b.
*[[presque trop] peu]
The examples in (38a–b) are to the contrasted with those in (i), which will be discussed in section 3.3.
(i)
a.
Ses
her
films
films
ont
have
beaucoup
a-lot
influencé
influenced
énormément
enormously
de
of
cinéastes.
film-makers
‘Her films have greatly influenced a lot of film-makers.’
b.
Le
the
projet
project
de
of
loi
law
Pinel
Pinel
a
has
beaucoup
a-lot
inquiété
worried
beaucoup
a-lot
d’auto-entrepreneurs.
of-independent-contractors
‘The Pinel bill greatly worried a lot of independent contractors.’
As pointed out by a reviewer, a Burnett-style analysis might still be able to account for the paradigm in (39) on semantic grounds as follows. On Burnett’s proposal, de-phrases combine with the verb through a non-canonical compositional rule that forms a constituent denoting a binary relation. On the assumption that conjuncts must be of the same semantic type, one could then argue that (39b) is correctly predicted to be well-formed while (39a), whose right conjunct denotes not a binary relation but a property (i.e., does not match the type of the left conjunct), is correctly expected to be ill-formed. I remain skeptical of this type of explanation, however. Indeed, it is well known that coordination does, in fact, allow type mismatches. The sentence in (i), for example, is the conjunction of a collective predicate of type (et)t with a “distributive predicate” of type t.
(i)
They [met in the lounge] and [had a martini].
One could of course hold on to the assumption that conjuncts must match in type and invoke type-shifting or some other mechanism to rule in sentences like (i) but it is unclear to me why such mechanisms could not then also incorrectly allow sentences like (39a) (if all that is wrong with them is that they present a type mismatch).
Note additionally the parallel, pointed out by a reviewer, between (39c) and the across-the-board extraction of combien ‘how much/many’ in (i).
(i)
Combien
how-many
a-t-elle
has-she
écrit
written
de
of
chansons
songs
et
and
composé
composed
de
of
symphonies?
symphonies
Cyr (1991: 45) claims that no such constraint is present in Québec French. However, she herself marks the illustrative examples she gives as not being fully acceptable.
(i)
a.
?
Ce
this
jeune
young
peintre
painter
a
has
beaucoup
a-lot
impressionné
impressed
de
of
connaisseurs.
connoisseurs
b.
?
On
we
a
have
trop
too-many
regretté
regretted
de
of
décisions.
decisions
This is also the conclusion reached by Doetjes (1994: 18) on different (though related) grounds.
A reviewer notes that if pre-verbal beaucoup in (46) is an intensifier, it should be able to freely alternate with très and that this is indeed the case for him/her in (46c) but not in (46a–b). This is not entirely unexpected given that it has been noted in the literature that while beaucoup and très freely alternate as intensifiers, particular speakers sometimes express a preference for one over the other in a given context (see e.g., Gaatone 2008).
Equally puzzling (for the same reasons) is the impossibility of A-bar moving the de-phrase from a direct object position to a focus position in the left periphery of the clause. The paradigm in (i), which involves mirative focus fronting, illustrates this point.
(i)
a.
Des
some
pièces
coins
d’or
of-gold
(qu’)il
(that)-he
a
has
découvert.
discovered
‘Gold coins he found.’
b.
*De
of
pièces
coins
d’or
of-gold
(qu’)il
(that)-he
a
has
beaucoup
a-lot
découvert.
discovered
‘Lots of gold coins he found.’
An additional argument can be made based on the observation made by Marsac (2006: 135) (see also Bošković 1997 for English) that complements to ECM perception verbs, unlike embedded tensed clauses (ia) and Control infinitivals (ib), cannot appear in pseudoclefts (ic), which suggests that overt shift of the embedded subject is blocked in those contexts.
(i)
a.
Ce
that
qu’elle
which-she
a
has
vu,
seen
c’est
it-is
[que
that
Pierre
Pierre
traversait
was-crossing
la
the
Seine].
Seine
‘What she saw was that Pierre was crossing the Seine.’
b.
Ce
that
que
which
Pierre
Pierre
veut,
wants
c’est
it-is
[PRO
traverser
to-cross
la
the
Seine].
Seine
‘What Pierre wants is to cross the Seine.’
c.
*Ce
that
qu’elle
which-she
a
has
vu,
seen
c’est
it-is
[Pierre
Pierre
traverser
to-cross
le
the
Seine].
Seine
Note that (ic) cannot be ruled out based on the inability of être ‘to be’ to assign case, as (ii) shows.
(ii)
Ce
that
qu’elle
which-she
a
has
vu,
seen
c’est
it-is
le
the
gâteau
cake
que
that
tu
you
avais
had
préparé.
prepared
‘What she saw was the cake that you baked.’
Marsac also notes that the infinitival complement to a perception verb, unlike its tensed counterpart (iiib), cannot be used as an elliptical answer to a question (iiia), which he takes to mean that it does not constitute a clausal constituent.
(iii)
Qu’as-tu vu?
‘What did you see?’
a.
*Mlle
Miss
Huot
Huot
danser.
to-dance
b.
Que
that
Mlle
Miss
Huot
Huot
dansait.
was-dancing
I will not consider here the (dialectically restricted) apparent violations of the Transparence Condition observed with respect to the long-distance movement of both degree quantifiers and bare quantifiers in examples with subjunctive clauses like (26) and (27). I will simply note that many poorly understood transparency effects are known to correlate with embedded subjunctive clauses. For example, Icelandic allows long distance anaphor binding across subjunctive CPs (Johnson 1985) and the Romance languages allow wh-island violations (Tsoulas 1995) and show obviations effects (see Costantini 2005 for overview of this phenomenon) across the same. Additionally, as noted by a reviewer, my treatment of QAD leaves aside other long-distance cases of movement out of infinitives such as (ia), a type of movement that is limited to certain verbs (ib) but is by no means dialectically restricted. (The examples in (i) are due to Taraldsen 1981: 254)
(i)
a.
Ils
they
ont
have
trop
too-many
voulu
wanted
visiter
to-visit
de
of
musées.
museums
‘They wanted to visit too many museums.’
b.
*Ils
they
ont
have
trop
too-many
avoué
confessed
connaître
to-know
de
of
jongleurs.
jugglers
‘They confessed knowing too many jugglers.’
Note however, that the contrast in (i) suggests that a restructuring/monoclausal analysis of (ia) might be possible. Spelling out the details of such an analysis is, however, beyond the scope of the present paper.