Titre | The French question particles ça and donc: a corpus study |
Publication Type | Article de revue |
Année de publication | 2021 |
Authors | Anastasiia, Smirnova, and Anne Abeillé |
Journal | Linguistic Research |
Volume | 38 |
Issue | 2 |
Start Page | 239 |
Pagination | 239-269 |
Abstract | We study two question particles (donc and ça) in a large French corpus. We show that they are specialized for direct questions, and that wh-ça is possible both in situ and in fronted position, contrary to previous literature (Cheng and Rooryck 2001). We also show that ellipsis is the most common use of wh-ça, with sluicing (Ross 1969) and a new construction that we call wh-stripping, while fronting is the most common use of wh-donc. In many examples, a non-elliptical question would be impossible or quite different, which seem to cast doubt on a deletion under identity approach of sluices (Ross 1969) and to favor a Direct Interpretation approach (Ginzburg and Sag 2000). |
URL | http://isli.khu.ac.kr/journal/content/data/38_2/3.pdf |