NP subject inversion in French: two types, two configurations

• Published in: Lingua Vol. 116; no. 4; pp. 424 - 461
• Main Author: Lahousse, Karen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.04.2006; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Descriptive studies and applied theories; Floating quantifiers; Focus; French; Information Structure; Linguistics; NP subject inversion; Semantics Discourse Relationship; Subject; Syntactic Structures; Syntax; Syntax Semantics Relationship; Topic; Word Order; Floating quantifiers; NP subject inversion; French; Word order; Topic; Focus; Generative syntax; Inversion
• ISSN: 0024-3841; 1872-6135
• DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2004.08.020

This paper deals with NP subject inversion in French. It is defended that the distinction generative linguists make between unaccusative inversion and stylistic inversion (i.e. inversion in extraction contexts) is not tenable. Instead, it is shown that unaccusative inversion and stylistic inversion...