La focalisation des conditionnelles

The aim of this article is to identify the different syntactic modes existing in French to focus if-clauses in constructions such as {if-P, Q}, and {Q if-P}. It is not irrelevant to consider that if-clauses may occupy a focus position, seeing that since Haiman (1978), it is generally admitted that “...

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Main Author: Gilles Corminboeuf
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses universitaires de Caen 2014-09-01
Series:Discours
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/discours/8903
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author Gilles Corminboeuf
author_facet Gilles Corminboeuf
author_sort Gilles Corminboeuf
collection DOAJ
description The aim of this article is to identify the different syntactic modes existing in French to focus if-clauses in constructions such as {if-P, Q}, and {Q if-P}. It is not irrelevant to consider that if-clauses may occupy a focus position, seeing that since Haiman (1978), it is generally admitted that “conditionals are topics”. Little attention has been paid in the literature, however, to contexts where if-P has the information status of focus. The present analysis concerns three categories of facts where if-P has a status of focus: if-clauses located within the scope of a negation or a restriction, or in cleft or pseudo-cleft constructions; if-clauses in an embedding context; and lastly, ellipsis of the Q component, as in “Et si on allait au cinéma?” [What if we went to the movies?]. From a syntactic point of view, an if-clause demands a Q component, but from an informational perspective, the reverse holds: an informative constraint makes if-P mandatory. The study demonstrates the existence of if-clauses which have systematically a topic status (so-called “factual” if-clauses) and of if-clauses which have a focus status (some comparative if-clauses, either embedded or with ellipsis of Q).
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spelling doaj-art-000ec1ffc8074c70bcceeb0ab9e731e72025-01-30T09:52:48ZengPresses universitaires de CaenDiscours1963-17232014-09-011410.4000/discours.8903La focalisation des conditionnellesGilles CorminboeufThe aim of this article is to identify the different syntactic modes existing in French to focus if-clauses in constructions such as {if-P, Q}, and {Q if-P}. It is not irrelevant to consider that if-clauses may occupy a focus position, seeing that since Haiman (1978), it is generally admitted that “conditionals are topics”. Little attention has been paid in the literature, however, to contexts where if-P has the information status of focus. The present analysis concerns three categories of facts where if-P has a status of focus: if-clauses located within the scope of a negation or a restriction, or in cleft or pseudo-cleft constructions; if-clauses in an embedding context; and lastly, ellipsis of the Q component, as in “Et si on allait au cinéma?” [What if we went to the movies?]. From a syntactic point of view, an if-clause demands a Q component, but from an informational perspective, the reverse holds: an informative constraint makes if-P mandatory. The study demonstrates the existence of if-clauses which have systematically a topic status (so-called “factual” if-clauses) and of if-clauses which have a focus status (some comparative if-clauses, either embedded or with ellipsis of Q).https://journals.openedition.org/discours/8903conditionalsfocustopicembeddingellipsis
spellingShingle Gilles Corminboeuf
La focalisation des conditionnelles
Discours
conditionals
focus
topic
embedding
ellipsis
title La focalisation des conditionnelles
title_full La focalisation des conditionnelles
title_fullStr La focalisation des conditionnelles
title_full_unstemmed La focalisation des conditionnelles
title_short La focalisation des conditionnelles
title_sort la focalisation des conditionnelles
topic conditionals
focus
topic
embedding
ellipsis
url https://journals.openedition.org/discours/8903
work_keys_str_mv AT gillescorminboeuf lafocalisationdesconditionnelles