CONTROL DE LA NATALIDAD

As suggested earlier with respect to (61c), the relationship between the negative operator and negative adverbs does not force the former to surface as Op in some nonstandard varieties of French, such as Québécois. T he examples here (from M arie Claude personal communication [62] and M uller 1991: 262 [63]) show how, in monoclausal contexts, pas can co-occur with negative adverbs and, especially, argumental rien and personne, without inducing DN.

(62) a. M arie pleure pas jamais. M . cries pasjamais

b. ’J’ai pas plus faim. I have pasplus hunger ‘I am no longer hungry.’ c. M ichel a pas rien fait.

M . has pasrien done ‘M . hasn’t done anything.’ d. Je vois pas personne.

I see paspersonne

‘I can’t see anyone.’

(63) a. Le samedi soir . . . , y a pas personne en ville à Québec. the Saturday evening there has pas personne in town at Q. ‘Saturday evenings . . . , there’s no-one in the center of Quebec.’ b. J’ai pas parlé à personne.

I have pas spoken to personne

‘I haven’t spoken to anyone.’

c. Tu travailles pas rien, tu risques pas grand-chose . . . you work pas rien you risk pas much

‘If you do no work, you don’t risk much . . . ’ d. Y m’ répond pas rien.

he me answers pas rien

‘He doesn’t answer me.’

e. Parsonne a pas l’ droit de rien faire pis de rien dire.

personne has pas the right of rien do then of rien say ‘No-one has the right to do nothing and say nothing.’ f. Personne n’ est pas venu.

personne ne is pas come ‘No-one came.’

M uller’s observation about the co-occurrence of pas and negative arguments is confirmed by M oritz and Valois (1994). The following examples are taken from Daoust-Blais and Kemp (1979: 11!12):

(64) a. Je connais pas personne. I know paspersonne

‘I don’t know anyone.’ b. J’ai pas vu personne.

I have pas seen personne

‘I haven’t seen anyone.’ c. Je vois pas rien.

I see pasrien

d. J’en ai pas vu aucun. I of-them have pas seen aucun

‘I haven’t seen any of them.’

e. Je sais pas jamais quand il va venir. I know pasjamais when he goes come ‘I never know when he’ll come.’

Outside Quebec, M uller (1991: 261) notes a construction in metropolitan French that he suggests is “populaire, dialectal, M oyen-Français, vieilli, rare” and in which pas can co-occur with negatives:

(65) a. Toute la rouscaillure n’ y fera pas rien. all the moaning ne there do-FU Tpasrien

‘All the moaning won’t make any difference.’ b. J’ai pas rien trouvé.

I have pasrien found ‘I haven’t found anything.’ c. Je connais pas aucun homme.

I know pasaucun man ‘I don’t know any men.’

d. Personne ne sait pas ce qu’ il y a derrière.

personnene knows pas what that he there has behind ‘No-one knows what’s behind it.’

e. . . . un parfum qu’ aucun artifice ne parvient pas à donner a perfume that aucun trick ne manages pas to give ‘ . . . a smell that no trick could manage to produce’

M uller notes further that this construction is even more frequent where the negative argument is embedded within a PP (hence the unavailability of negative adverbs, which cannot, for independent reasons, occur in such positions).

PP

(66) a. Il fera pas d’ cadeau [ à personne ]. he do-FU Tpas of gift to personne

‘He won’t give anyone a present.’

PP

b. Il ne fait pas de doute [ pour personne ] que . . . it ne does pas of doubt for personne that ‘No-one doubts that . . . ’

PP

c. Je n’ ai pas besoin [ d’ aucune preuve ]. I ne have pas need of aucune proof ‘I don’t need any proof.’

How is one to deal with these data? One possibility is that, unlike in Standard French, pas has not become inherently negative in Québécois (and the other

relevant varieties). If pas were still what M uller (1991) terms a semi-négation, that is, a noninherently negative NPI, its co-occurrence properties would be expected. However, this seems unlikely. Denise Daoust-Blais, for example, has argued that, in Q uébécois as in Standard French, pas and not ne must be considered the true negative marker (Daoust-Blais 1975; Daoust-Blais and Kemp 1979: 11). Indeed, ne is generally omitted in Québécois (Sankoff and V incent 1977). Such an approach is therefore implausible and unlikely to be able to explain the contrast between the standard and nonstandard varieties. A different approach is therefore needed.

An alternative analysis, one that has been advocated by M oritz and Valois (1994: 679fn12), is to hold that, in Québécois, for example, pas has been reanal- yzed as NegE. (Recall, for example, from the discussion of the Negative Cycle in section 3.1.1, especially footnote 6, that the negative marker non, an adverb in Latin, has been reanalyzed as the realization of a functional head in the modern Romance languages.) However, as discussed in section 3.1.2, I find this idea implausible for a number of reasons. First, there are no syntactic respects in which pas in Québécois behaves like a head. In all respects, most importantly concerning Verb M ovement patterns across it, pas in Québécois behaves like a maximal projection, a fact adequately reflected in the analysis of this element as the specifier of NegP. Second, there has been no major typological shift in Québécois that might explain why speakers would begin to analyze pas as a head rather than as a maximal projection. Third, Québécois is in fact more of a paradigm case of a negative concord language than is Standard French. Given the analysis of the negative adverbs and arguments as non-inherently negative NPIs of one sort or another, I actually expect them to co-occur with a negative X P operator. In such terms, it is the “weird” standard language that begs an explanation, rather than the nonstandard varieties. I therefore reject the claim that pas in Québécois has been reanalyzed as NegE.

I return to the relationship between the negative operator and negative adverbs in section 5.5.2, where I develop the approach to (61b, c) sketched in section 4.4.2 for the standard and the nonstandard patterns.

4.5

Summary

In this chapter, I have considered the syntax of the negative adverbs plus, ja- mais, and guère. In line with the conclusion drawn at the end of chapter 3, name- ly that M odern French is a non-NC language, I analyzed these elements as nonnegative. I treated them as NPIs, in that their negative interpretation is the result of their co-occurrence with an operator that is inherently negative and that takes scope over them. In the standard language, this operator is non-overt: Op; in some nonstandard varieties, such as Québécois, it can be overt: pas. By con- cluding that the “negative” adverbs of French are not inherently negative them- selves, I was able to provide an elegant account for the freer distributions these elements witness in comparison with pas. W hereas pas must raise to SpecN egP

where this position is accessible, since this is the only way in which sentential negation can be marked, the “negative” adverbs do not since sentential negation can be marked if the non-overt Op raises (without taking the lexical adverb with it).

1. While the presence of pre-verbal ne is generally optional (see section 1.2.4, and the references in chapter 1, footnote 3, for discussion of the sociolinguistics of “ne-drop”), Ashby (1976: 123, 1981: 679) notes in two studies that, where the grammatical subject is personne or rien, pre-verbal ne is never deleted. Prince (1976: 410) gives the same judgment. A couple of comments are in order at this point. First, Escure (1974: 403) disagrees with Ashby and Prince, giving the following data (her (3b) and (4b)):

(i) Personne vient.

personne comes ‘No-one is coming.’ (ii) Personne veut rien.

personne wants rien

‘No-one wants anything.’

Escure’s judgments are in no way marginal; my informants also accept (i) and (ii). Second, the fact that

personne and, in liaison contexts, rien both end in an [n] makes it difficult to tell whether or not ne has been dropped. The contrast could be reduced to the presence-versus-absence of gemination. Strong categorical claims that ne is never dropped in these contexts need therefore to be treated with care. Further, Prince’s judgment was based on accepted prescriptivist views rather than observation (personal communication). More reliable contexts in which to test the hypothesis, that is, avoiding phrase-final [n], are suggested in (iii) and (iv):

(iii) Rien du tout (?n’?)a été fait.

rien of-the all ne has been done ‘Nothing at all was done.’

(iv) Personne d’ intéressant (?n’?)a été invité à la fête.

personne of interesting ne has been invited to the party ‘No-one interesting was invited to the party.’

Finally, in recent discussion, and following further fieldwork of the type presented in Ashby (1976, 1981), Bill Ashby (personal communication) reports that he has found instances of ne-drop in the pre- sence of personne and rien in subject position.

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