See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320015029 Ya les oiseaux qui chantent. A corpus analysis of French il y a clefts Thesis · September 2017 CITATIONS READS 5 116 1 author: Lena Karssenberg KU Leuven 13 PUBLICATIONS 79 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Presentational clefts in French and in Italian: a corpus-based, comparative analysis View project Preverbal indefinite subjects View project All content following this page was uploaded by Lena Karssenberg on 20 June 2019. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. KU Leuven Faculty of Arts Linguistics department Ya les oiseaux qui chantent a corpus analysis of French il y a clefts Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Linguistics by Lena Karssenberg Public defense 23 September 2017, Leuven Supervisor Prof. Dr. Karen Lahousse Co-supervisors Prof. Dr. Andreas Dufter Prof. Dr. Stefania Marzo Chairman Prof. Dr. Dirk Geeraerts Additional member of the jury Prof. Dr. Kristin Davidse Prof. Dr. Véronique Lagae Prof. Dr. Béatrice Lamiroy Prof. Dr. Manuel Leonetti Acknowledgments | Dankwoord There are many people I sincerely want to thank for their support in the past four years, but the person I’m by far most grateful to is my supervisor, Karen Lahousse. Not only for her detailed and constructive criticism on all output related to the project, but also for her emotional support during difficult periods and for encouraging me to try and stay in academia after finishing the PhD. I really felt privileged to have her as my supervisor and it is unquestionable that she had a significant effect on both the quality of the dissertation and on my own well-being. I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: I would not have traded you for any other supervisor and I truly hope our paths will keep crossing! I’m also very grateful to my two co-supervisors Stefania Marzo & Andreas Dufter. Stefania for the discussions about the Italian data and the recurrent reminder “Just because it’s under-researched doesn’t mean it’s worthy of attention, give good arguments!”. Andreas for his quick feedback on all first drafts of the dissertation and for his very warm welcome in Munich. Their constructive comments and suggestions clearly helped improve the dissertation. I’m looking forward to collaborating with both of you in the future (hopefully!). I would also like to thank Kristin Davidse & Béatrice Lamiroy for their comments on earlier drafts of certain chapters, and Manuel Leonetti & Véronique Lagae for being on my jury. I’m honored to be judged by such experts. Furthermore, I’m thankful to Piet Mertens, Hendrik De Smet, Lyan Verwimp and Daniela Guglielmo for the extraction of the data in Le Monde, YCCQA, CFPP and La Stampa respectively. Doing a PhD would not have been as much fun without all my colleagues at KU Leuven: my office mates (in order of appearance: Tom, Maria Chiara & Morgane) and all the others (including, but not limited to, Elwys, Laura, Melanie, Céline, Karlien, Gaétan, Isabeau, Stefano, Benedikt, Dirk, Freek…). I very much enjoyed the lunches at Alma and the coffees afterwards. What’s more, you were all very patient with me the countless times I had to run back to my office to check whether I had really locked my door, so thanks a lot! My dissertation was financed by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) (research project G061113N, under the supervision of Karen, Stefania & Béatrice). Moreover, several FWO grants allowed me to go to Chicago (4 weeks), Paris (3 months) and Munich (3 weeks) and organize a 2-day workshop about non-prototypical clefts at KU Leuven. I sincerely thank the FWO for enabling me to have all those enriching experiences. I’m grateful to the people at Lattice (Paris 3, especially Sophie Prévost, Benjamin Fagard & Frédéric Landragin). The same goes for all the people in Munich, especially Andreas, Thomas, Nicholas, Johannes and Sebastian. I’m also grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions helped improve the papers I submitted and, as a consequence, some of the chapters in this dissertation. Of course, I also want to thank my family (Tjalling & Mieke, Sanne & Sara en al hun aanhang) and my non-linguist friends (Nienke, Asela, Brechtje, Leonee, Maret, Janna, Joost, Jon, Burger, Chris, Arion…). It may not have been very clear to you what I was actually doing during the past four years, but you supported me anyway, which is much appreciated! Last but not least, I’m proud to say that the most mind-blowing, life-changing discovery that I’ve made during my PhD is Klaus Ludwig. Like the man at the printer’s said: “Your PhD is about French and Italian, you wrote it in English, in Leuven, but you’re from the Netherlands. Let me guess: your boyfriend is German.” – “Yes, he really is!” I calculated that the average waiting time in number of days between (a) hearing that one of my papers is accepted by a journal and (b) the actual publication of that paper is longer than the time it took us to (a) meet, (b) fall madly in love and (c) get married. I’d say that’s quite an achievement. Thank you for everything, Klaus. You’re so much more important than this dissertation. Thank you everyone! Bedankt iedereen! Voor mijn ouders, Mieke en Tjalling Table of contents General introduction .......................................................................................... 1 1. Why study il y a clefts? ............................................................................................ 1 1.1. Using more structure when you could do with less .................................................... 1 1.2. A (less well-known) member of the cleft family ....................................................... 4 2. Terminology ........................................................................................................... 8 3. Il y a clefts in a nutshell ............................................................................................ 9 3.1. A definition of il y a clefts? ....................................................................................... 9 3.2. Semantics and discourse functions ......................................................................... 10 3.3. Similar il y a sentences (not considered in this dissertation) .................................... 11 4. Goals and structure of the dissertation ................................................................. 13 Part I - Delimitation of il y a clefts ............................................................... 17 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 19 Chapter 1 - Criteria for clefthood in previous studies ................................................. 23 1.1 The decleftability criterion ....................................................................................... 23 1.2 Diagnostics: type of relative clause ......................................................................... 26 1.2.1 Restrictive relative clauses (RRCs) vs. cleft relative clauses ............................... 27 1.2.2 Syntactic constituency tests: RRC or not? ........................................................ 30 1.2.2.1 Pronominalisation .................................................................................. 31 1.2.2.2 Dislocation ............................................................................................. 32 1.2.2.3 Omission of the relative clause ............................................................... 33 1.2.2.4 Adjectival/prepositional equivalent ........................................................ 35 1.2.2.5 Interim conclusion .................................................................................. 36 1.2.3 Appositive relative clauses ............................................................................... 37 1.3 Semantico-pragmatic diagnostics ........................................................................... 40 1.3.1 Semantic classifications of il y a... qui sentences .............................................. 40 1.3.2 Two properties that distinguish between stative & eventive il y a... qui sentences . 42 1.3.3 Linguistic tests ................................................................................................ 44 1.3.3.1 “What’s happening?” ............................................................................. 44 1.3.3.2 The interpretation of il y a: reformulation test ....................................... 45 1.3.3.3 Negation of il y a .................................................................................... 47 1.3.4 Specificational il y a clefts ................................................................................ 51 1.4 Overview of the diagnostics ..................................................................................... 53 Chapter 2 - Corpora and extraction ............................................................................ 55 2.1 Description of the corpora ....................................................................................... 55 2.2 Il y a... qui sentences: extraction of the data ........................................................... 56 Table of contents 2.2.1 Le Monde ......................................................................................................... 57 2.2.2 YCCQA ...........................................................................................................