Quand La Nominalisation Envahit La Subordination

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Quand La Nominalisation Envahit La Subordination Quand la nominalisation envahit la subordination : étude sur ‘ce que’ dans les propositions subordonnées en français, selon une approche comparative, diachronique et expérimentale Ingrid Konrad To cite this version: Ingrid Konrad. Quand la nominalisation envahit la subordination : étude sur ‘ce que’ dans les propo- sitions subordonnées en français, selon une approche comparative, diachronique et expérimentale. Linguistique. Université Sorbonne Paris Cité, 2019. Français. NNT : 2019USPCC072. tel-02971026 HAL Id: tel-02971026 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02971026 Submitted on 19 Oct 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Thèse de doctorat de l’Université Sorbonne Paris Cité Préparée à l’Université Paris Diderot École doctorale Sciences du langage (ED 132) Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle / Labex EFL Quand la nominalisation envahit la subordination Étude sur ‘ce que’ dans les propositions subordonnées en français, selon une approche comparative, diachronique et expérimentale par Ingrid K Thèse de doctorat de Linguistique Théorique, Formelle et Automatique Dirigée par Caterina Donai Présentée et soutenue publiquement à Paris le 22 juillet 2019 Anne A, Professeure, LLF, CNRS - Université Paris Diderot (Pidene d J) Adriana B, Professeure, Université de Genève et Università di Siena Carlo C, Directeur de recherches, SFL, CNRS - Université Paris 8 Caterina D, Professeure, LLF, CNRS - Université Paris Diderot Nino G, Lecturer, University of York Barbara H, Directrice de recherches, LLF, CNRS - Université Paris Diderot Maria L, Professora Associada, Universidade NOVA, Lisbonne 2 i and la nominalisation envahit la subordination Étude sur ‘ce que’ dans les propositions subordonnées en français, se- lon une approe comparative, diaronique et expérimentale Résumé : Cette thèse porte sur la syntaxe des propositions subordonnées impliquant ‘ce’ en français, à savoir certaines complétives, certaines relatives et certaines interrogatives indirectes. Il semblerait que la nominalisation ait envahi la subordination en français et je m’interroge sur le statut et le rôle de l’élément nominal (D) ‘ce’ dans ces différentes constructions. Une grande partie de cette thèse se focalise sur l’ambiguïté atypique entre relatives à tête allégée (Ciko, 2004) et interrogatives indirectes introduites par ‘ce qui/ce que’. A partir d’une étude diachronique du 11eme au 17eme siècles, de tests de répétition de phrases avec des enfants français âgés entre 3 et 6 ans, d’une comparaison avec le portugais à la fois sur le plan syntaxique et sur le plan de l’acquisition, et d’une expérience de lecture par présentation auto-segmentée avec des adultes francophones, j’exclus l’hypothèse d’une incorporation de ‘ce’ à ‘que’ donnant lieu à un nouveau mot wh- /səkə/. Le comportement syntaxique atypique, en synchronie, des interrogatives indirectes introduites par ‘ce qu-‘ me conduit à les analyser comme des DPs. Je propose qu’il s’agit en réalité de questions dé- guisées en relatives. Cette proposition m’amène à réfléchir à deux problèmes : le problème de la sélection et le problème de l’interprétation. En m’appuyant sur l’analyse des complé- tives en P+ce+que par Zaing, 1992 ainsi que plusieurs données dans d’autres langues, je mets en évidence l’existence de CPs nominalisés et j’affirme que la distinction syntaxique entre DP et CP n’est pas catégorique. Quant à la question de comment une relative avec ‘ce’ comme tête peut être interprétée comme une question, je postule que ‘ce’ est explétif, donc dénué de référentialité, tout comme dans les complétives. Les deux structures rela- tives (vraies relatives et questions déguisées en relatives) sont dérivées par appariement impliquant un opérateur nul. Mais la relation de prédication entre l’opérateur et la tête ‘ce’ ne se concrétise que dans les vraies relatives, où ‘ce’ est référentiel. Ainsi, les propositions subordonnées impliquant ‘ce que’ en français ont toutes une structure DP+CP. Toutefois, l’élément D ‘ce’ n’est référentiel et interprétable sur le plan sémantique que dans les rela- tives à tête allégée. Mots-clés : Relatives à tête allégée, interrogatives indirectes, complétives, ambiguïté syn- taxique, diachronie, acquisition, traitement, incorporation, nominalisation, explétif. ii When nominalization pervades subordination A study on ‘ce que’ in subordinate clauses in Fren, through a com- parative, diaronic and experimental approa Abstract : This dissertation deals with the syntax of subordinate clauses involving ‘ce’in French, namely a particular kind of complement clauses, a particular kind of relative clauses and a particular kind of indirect questions. It seems that nominalization has pervaded su- bordination in French, and I am questioning the status and the role of the nominal element (D) ‘ce’ in these constructions. A large part of this dissertation focuses on the syntactic am- biguity between light-headed relatives (Ciko, 2004) and indirect questions introduced by ‘ce qui/ce que’. On the basis of a diachronic study ranging from the 11th century to the 17th century, of a number of sentence repetition tasks performed on French children, aged from 3 to 6 years of age and of a self-paced reading experiment performed with French adults, I exclude that ‘ce’ and ‘que’ have incorporated and that /səkə/ is a wh-word. A closer scrutiny of the atypical syntactic behaviour, in synchrony, of indirect questions introduced by ‘ce qu-‘ leads me to analyse them as DPs. My proposal is that these structures are indeed ques- tions disguised as relative clauses. This proposal brings me to reconsider two issues :the selection issue and the interpretation one. Building on the analysis of complement clauses in P+ce+que given by Zaing, 1992, as well as several data in other languages, I emphasise the existence of nominalized CPs, and I claim that the syntactic distinction between DP and CP is not categorical. As for the issue of how a relative clause with ‘ce’ as a head can get to be interpreted as a question, I assume that ‘ce’ is expletive, and thus devoid of referentiality, just like it is in complement clauses. Both relatives with ‘ce que’ (true relatives and ques- tions disguised as relatives) are generated through a matching derivation involving a null operator. But the predicative relation holding between the operator and the head ‘ce’ only takes a value in true relatives, where ‘ce’ is referential. Concluding, subordinate clauses involving ‘ce que’ in French all have a DP+CP structure. However, the D element ‘ce’ is semantically referential and interpretable only in light-headed relatives. Keywords : Light-headed relatives, indirect questions, complement clauses, syntactic am- biguity, diachrony, acquisition, parsing, incorporation, nominalization, expletive. iii Entre Ce que je pense Ce que je veux dire Ce que je crois dire Ce que je dis Ce que vous avez envie d’entendre Ce que vous croyez entendre Ce que vous entendez Ce que vous avez envie de comprendre Ce que vous croyez comprendre Ce que vous comprenez Il y a dix possibilités qu’on ait des difficultés à communiquer. Mais essayons quand même… Bernard Webe (L’Encyclopédie du Savoir Relatif et Absolu) iv Remerciements Durant ce long périple qu’est le doctorat, mon chemin a croisé celui de nombreuses per- sonnes, qui ont contribué, d’une façon ou d’une autre, à l’élaboration de la présente thèse. En premier lieu, je tiens bien sûr à remercier Caterina Donai, ma directrice, pour avoir accepté de diriger mon travail de thèse et pour m’avoir guidée comme il se doit pendant presque quatre années de recherches. Je lui suis extrêmement reconnaissante pour sa dis- ponibilité, pour son soutien constant, pour ses précieux conseils et pour ses commentaires toujours très pertinents. J’ai beaucoup appris avec elle, grâce à sa générosité intellectuelle. Je tiens également à exprimer ma profonde gratitude envers Carla Soae Jeel, qui m’a codirigée pour le mémoire de Master 2 et qui m’a beaucoup soutenue en toutes choses de- puis de nombreuses années. J’ai eu la chance d’enrichir mes connaissances sur l’acquisition du langage grâce à elle, domaine qui me passionne depuis longtemps. Je la remercie aussi pour ses commentaires et suggestions m’ayant permis de retravailler la partie acquisition de la présente thèse. Je remercie Gilles Bo et Catherine Mahon, tous deux maîtres de conférences à l’Uni- versité Bordeaux Montaigne, qui ont cru en moi et qui m’ont conseillée du mieux que pos- sible sur le parcours à suivre après la licence. C’est en partie grâce à eux que je suis arrivée jusqu’ici. Je remercie mes rapporteurs, Maria Lobo et Carlo Ceccheo, ainsi que Barbara Hem foh, Nino Gillo, Anne Abeill et Adriana Bellei, qui ont accepté de faire partie de mon jury de thèse. La préparation de cette thèse a été financée par un contrat doctoral (2015-2018), etj’ai également bénéficié d’une bourse de mobilité de trois mois (de mai à juillet 2017), grâce au Labex EFL, qui m’a permis de faire une partie de mes recherches à l’Universidade NOVA à Lisbonne. Je remercie Maria Lobo pour m’avoir accueillie dans ce nouvel environnement de recherches et pour m’avoir guidée durant cette période. v vi De plus, grâce au projet portant sur « Le développement de la syntaxe dans le processus d’acquisition monolingue et bilingue du français et du portugais européen » (38033ZL) du Programme Peoa 2017/2018 (Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Étrangères, Ministère de l’Éducation Nationale, de l’Enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche (France), Fon- dation pour la Science et la Technologie (Portugal)), j’ai eu la chance d’être financée pour pouvoir poursuivre mes investigations sur l’acquisition des dépendances A-barre en portu- gais européen, durant quelques jours à Lisbonne.
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