304 Qk{s/S} has been counted as a subtype of QE{s/S}.
305 The percentages only amount to 99.9% because numbers are rounded to the first decimal place.
{s/S}V 48%
{s/S}VQ 13%
Q{s/S}V 7%
E{s/S}V 6%
QE{s/S}V 7%
QEVS 0%
Vs 5%
SVs 8%
QVs 3%
QSVs 1%
QVS 2%
Non-elliptical yes/no and wh-interrogatives
149 Factorial analysis
In this subsection, the impact of potential factors will be assessed. While the first part examines purely linguistic dependencies (i.e. correlations of a string’s morphosyntactic form with its morpho-lexical content), the second one takes into account the circumstances under which a certain string is produced (i.e. situation and subject).
Linguistic factors
In the following, several linguistic factors will be examined:
(i) Type of information gap (yes/no vs. wh vs. disjunctive (a); question word (b); prepositional vs. non-prepositional wh-phrase (c))
(ii) Subject type (pronominal vs. non-pronominal (a); tu vs. vous (b), ça (c))
(iii) Verb type (modal vs. non-modal (a); compound vs. non-compound (b); verbal complements (c);
semantic content (d); sociostylistic marking (e))
(iv) Negation (negated vs. non-negated (a); ne-retention vs. ne-omission (b))
As will be shown, most but not all of these factors seem to be of importance to the probability of a structure’s use.
One of the most well-known linguistic factors is the type of information gap (i) of an interrogative.
One of the oldest categorisation is certainly the distinction between semantic question types (a), such as yes/no vs. wh vs. alternative question (see 2.2.2). Studies as early as the one of Fromaigeat (1938) reported great differences in the distribution of morphosyntactic forms across these types (see 3.1).
Recent studies confirm the distinct behaviour of the three categories (Coveney 2002; Quillard 2000;
Druetta 2009)306. As already suggested by the differences between questions with and without wh-words (see last subsection, p.148), such distributional variances were also found in the RTV corpus (see figure 19).
306 The order of studies follows the chronological order of the first publication of data. As Coveney’s work was first published in 1996, it appears before Quillard.
150
Figure 19: Distribution of main morphosyntactic types across semantic types
Although all three semantic types show a clear prevalence of declarative forms, the proportions of the main morphosyntactic types vary significantly.307 Interestingly, yes/no-interrogatives were not less often inverted than wh-interrogatives. This differs from the results of Behnstedt (1973: 102)308, who observed that declarative word order was more accepted in yes/no-interrogatives than in wh-interrogatives. As will be shown later on, the proportion of inverted structures may though rather be explained by the extralinguistic factor of speech type (see p. 186). What is more, wh-interrogatives favour periphrastic structures. However, this apparent promotion of EST-CE QUE was due to a single question word: QUE (see p. 160). In other words, it was not the semantic type of wh-interrogative which favoured periphrasis but the question word QUE. If one follows Myers (2007) in analysing Qu’est-ce qu{e/’/i} as a grammaticalized question word (i.e. if these constructions are counted as declarative and inverted structures), periphrastic structures are even disfavoured in wh-interrogatives (see figure 20).
307 If the differences between yes/no-interrogatives and disjunctive interrogatives or yes/no-interrogatives and wh-interrogatives are evaluated statistically, they are proven to be significant (p = 0.01019 and p = 4.492e-10). If all semantic types are taken into account at once, it is thus as good as excluded that the distributional differences observed are due to chance (p = 4.254e-11).
308 And also Fromaigeat (1938).
907 408
46
123 134
257 125 42
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
yes/no wh alternative
declarative periphrastic inverted
151
Figure 20: Adjusted distribution of main morphosyntactic types across semantic types
On top of the differences in the proportions of the main morphosyntactic types, there were also differences in the subtypes. These differences can be put down partly to logical availability, and partly to linguistic restrictions.
Since wh-questions “create an open proposition by leaving parts of the description of the proposition unspecified” (Krifka 2011: 1744), they must somehow encode a missing constituent. In most cases, this is done by means of a question word, but there is also the possibility of using an incomplete sentence.
Semantically speaking, one could thus say that there is either an explicit wh-expression or a wh-null element. Additionally, question words can appear pre- as well as postverbally, and the wh-phrase can function as the grammatical subject itself. Hence, there are four variants for a wh-interrogative with straight word order and without est-ce que (i.e. {s/S}VQ, Q{s/S}V, Q={s/S}V, and {s/S}VØ) whereas there is only one variant for the corresponding yes/no-interrogatives (i.e. {s/S}V) (see chapter 2, p.38). While the 892 morphosyntactically unmarked yes/no-interrogatives are thus homogenous in nature (i.e. all are of the same form as (93)), the 408 corresponding wh-interrogatives consist of 250 wh-in-situ (of which one is given as (94)), 89 wh-ex-situ ones (of which one is given as (95)), 58 wh-subject (illustrated by the analogously constructed example (96)), and 11 wh-left-out (of which one is given as (97)) structures.
On met sept ?309 (sV)
Vous chaussez du combien ?310 (sVQ)
Combien de variétés de pain, excusez-moi, vous avez là ?311 (QsV)
Combien de candidats participent à Les Reines du Shopping ?312 (Q={s/S}V) J’en avais demandé … ?313 (sVØ)
309 English translation: ‘Shall we put seven?’ (BVAH_1_01_00_53)
310 English translation: ‘What shoe size do you wear?’ (SHOP_2_01_11_34)
311 English translation: ‘How many bread sorts, excuse me, do you have there?’ (MBOU_3_00_06_51)
312 English translation: ‘How many candidats participate in Les Reines du Shopping?’
313 English translation: ‘I had ask for [how many]?’ (CHAP_1_00_29_41)
907 533 46
123 7
257 127 42
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
yes/no wh disjunctive
declarative periphrastic inverted
152
Similarly, but to a lesser extent, periphrastic wh-interrogatives are not restricted to one form either.
Here, there seem to be two possibilities: one with declarative word order (i.e. QE{s/S}V) and one with subject-verb inversion (i.e. QEVS). While there were 134 instances of periphrastic wh-structures with declarative word order (of which one is given as (98)), there were only 2 with subject-verb inversion (given as (99) and (100)).
Qu’est-ce que les autres en pensent ?314 (QESV) Qu’est-ce que va choisir Charlotte ?315 (QEVS)
D’après vous, Qu’est-ce que mangent les canards ?316 (QEVS)
Likewise, although the proportions of subject-verb inversion in yes/no- and wh-interrogatives were similar, the two semantic types did not show the same distribution of inverted structures (see figure 21).
Figure 21: Distribution of inversion types in yes/no- and wh-interrogatives
For one thing, it was confirmed that inversion of non-pronominal subjects is only possible with wh-words (QVS vs. *VS). In other wh-words, stylistic inversion is restricted to wh-interrogatives. For another, complex clitic inversion was much more common in yes/no-interrogatives than in wh-interrogatives.
In conclusion, there are several restrictions and tendencies which can be attributed to the semantic type of a question. It is thus clear that yes/no- and wh-interrogatives behave differently from a morphosyntactic point of view.
As far as constituent questions are concerned, the semantic content can be further classified since, depending on what information is lacking, the wh-expression is chosen. That the choice of a certain question word (b) influences the morphosyntactic structure of an interrogative has been known for a long time (see studies as old as the ones of Pohl 1965 or Ashby 1977, and to some extent even
314 English translation: ‘What do the others think of that?’ (UDPP_1_01_12_44)
315 English translation: ‘What will Charlotte choose?’ (CHAP_1_00_44_54)
316 English translation: ‘According to you, what do ducks eat?’ (UDPP_1_00_43_42)
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
yes/no wh
simple clitic complex clitic stylistic
153
Fromaigeat 1938) and could also be shown in the previous chapter. Accordingly, the impact of this factor shall not only be confirmed for current language use but also assessed in terms of size.
Interrogatives with the subject pronoun QUI (‘who’)317 were mostly (i.e. in 52 out of 59 cases) realised as Q={s/S}V-structures (of which one is given as (101)). This is in line with previous studies (Coveney 2002; Quillard 2000; Druetta 2009). Apart from this pattern, there were only single instances of other structures, which surfaced exclusively with être: 1 instance of QsV (see (102)), 1 instance of QVs (see (103)), 2 instances of sVQ (see (104) and (105)), and 3 instances of qui c’est qui (of which one example is given as (106)). There was no occurrence of qui est-ce qui, which was also absent from the corpora of Coveney (2002: 214) and Druetta (2009: 85)318. Equally, there were only two occurrences of qui functioning as an object pronoun – and both of them were prepositional: There was 1 instance of preverbal à qui (given as (107)), and 1 instance of postverbal à qui (given as (108)).
Qui remportera le titre de meilleur hôtel de la semaine ?319 (Q={s/S}V) Qui c’est ?320 (QsV)
Mais à part ça, qui est-elle ?321 (QVs) Mais c’est qui, Aurélie ?322 (sVQ+S) C’était qui, Tanko ?323 (sVQ+S)
Monsieur, qui c’est qui vous achète ça ?324 (QsV) À qui tu vas faire visiter en premier ?325 (QsV) Tu penses à qui ?326 (sVQ)
As for the subject pronoun QUE (‘what’)327, there could be observed more variation: All three main morphosyntactic types were used to a considerable proportion. Quite surprisingly, the most frequent structure was not, as suggested by other studies (e.g. Coveney 2002; Druetta 2009), QEsV (43 occurrences, see (109) and (110))328, but {s/S}VQ (68 occurrences, see (111)). Since quoisubject
can appear in-situ only with être (i.e. only as subject attribute), the big number of occurrences of
317 Strictly speaking, this pronoun can function as the grammatical subject as well as the subject attribute. From a semantic perspective, it is sensible to treat both as equivalents. What is more, with que a clear distinction is not always possible: Since il can be pronounced /i/, Qu’est-ce qu’il s’est passé ? is not necessarily distinguishable from Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé ?.
318 In contrast, Quillard (2000: 120) and Myers (2007: 178f.) did each find 3 occurrences of periphrastic quisubject. In the former, they seemed to be genuine questions whereas in the latter, they were used in jokes and reported speech only.
319 English translation: ‘Who will get the titel best hotel of the week?’ (BVAH_1_01_08_08)
320 English translation: ‘Who is it/that?’ (UDPP_1_00_39_42)
321 English translation: ‘But apart from this, who is she?’ (UDPP_5_00_01_38)
322 English translation: ‘But who is Aurélie?’ (BVCN_1_00_32_44)
323 English translation: ‘Who was Tanko’ (BVAH_1_01_05_27)
324 English translation: ‘Who buys that for you?’ (MBOU_3_00_28_01)
325 English translation: ‘Whom are you going to make visit [the apartment] first?’ (CHAP_3_00_23_36)
326 English translation: ‘Whom are you thinking of?’ (BVAH_2_01_01_11)
327 The question word QUE can occur as qu’, que and quoi.
328 The structure QEsV comprises to subtypes: the true subject ce qui V and the subject-attributive qu’est-ce qu’il V. As E stands for est-qu’est-ce qu-, the subject is in the first case the ending -i whereas it is the impersonal il in the second case.
154
quoisubject-in-situ shows the wide spreading of {C’/Ce} + {est/était/était/sera} + quoi. Similarly, the share of subject-verb inversion could be attributed to the use of a (quasi-)lexicalised329 structure: QVs-structures were remarkably often (13 out of 16 occurrences) used with the fixed expression qu’en {est/sera-t}-il de … (‘What about… ?’, see (112)). As a consequence, if the two most recurrent structures (i.e. {C’/Ce} + {est/était/était/sera} + quoi and qu’en {est/sera-t}-il de …) are excluded from the counts, the periphrastic structure is indeed the by far most frequently used variant.
Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé ?330 ({QE}={s/S}V) Euh, Qu’est-ce qu’il reste ?331 (QEsV)
Au fait, c’est quoi, le secret d’un bon cannelé, Patty ?332 (sVQ+S) Qu’en sera-t-il des accompagnements ?333 (QVs)
The distribution of main morphosyntactic types was similar for QUE in the function of a direct object.
Here as well, all three types were used to a considerable proportion. To the available options QUEsubject, stylistic inversion was added.334 For each morphosyntactic variant, one example is given hereafter (see (113) for wh-in-situ, (114) for a structure with question particle, (115) for simple clitic inversion, and (116) for stylistic inversion).
Vous savez quoi ?335 (sVQ) Qu’est-ce qu’on disait ?336 (QEsV)
En attendant, Cristina, que faut-il retenir du shopping de JS ?337 (QVs) Et que pense Lisa de sa transformation ?338 (QVS)
Also here, in-situ structures and periphrastic structures were both very common (i.e. 89 and 86 occurrences respectively). As opposed to QUEsubject, inverted forms were more often (i.e. 35) used, which was at least partly due to the additionally available variant of stylistic inversion (14 instances339).
Since these distributional differences are not significant (p = 0.167), there was no evidence for an influence of the function of the pronoun. Nonetheless, it is obvious that at least the quoi-in-situ
329 When searching the world wide web, one encounters only single cases of “qu’est-ce qui en sera de” and
“qu’est-ce qu’il en sera de”, but many thousands of “qu’en sera-t-il de”.
330 English translation: ‘What happened?’ (BVAC_3_00_38_59)
331 English translation: ‘Uh, what is left?’ (UDPP_5_00_24_58)
332 English translation: ‘By the way, what’s the secret of a good cannelé [specific pastry], Patty?’
(UDPP_5_00_14_10)
333 English translation: ‘What about the side dishes?’ Preceding utterance: La viande fait presque l'unanimité.
‘There is almost consensus on the meat.’ (UDPP_1_01_06_52)
334 Logically, complex clitic inversion would also be possible for objective que. It has however been claimed that que and the conjugated verb form have to be adjacent (Prévost 2009: 327), and que is usually described as ungrammatical with complex inversion (see e.g. Kleineidam 1990: 136). Indeed, no complex inversion was used, but two instances of subject dislocation could be found (see p. 22).
335 English translation ‘You know what?’ (introductory question) (ADDI_2_00_38_37)
336 English translation ‘What did we say?’ (SHOP_3_00_20_13)
337 English translation: ‘While we are waiting: what do we have to recall from JS’s shopping tour?’
(SHOP_2_01_08_10)
338 English translation: ‘And what does Lisa think of her transformation?’ (CSQD_1_00_44_57)
339 The remaining tu instances were all
155
structures are very different in nature: While QUEsubject appeared postverbally only in copula constructions with être, QUEobject surfaced also postverbally with many different transitive verbs. Hence, it is particularly remarkable that subject quoi-in-situ was almost as common as object quoi-in-situ. This makes clear that c’est quoi (+ dislocation) is a very recurrent structure, which can be assumed to be typical of contemporary spoken French.
Another interesting observation is that two of the clitically inverted structures contained left-dislocated subjects (see (117) and (118)):
Et Gibé, que pense-t-il de la purée de sa protégée ?340 (S+QVs) Et les autres, qu’ont-ils pensé de la visite ?341 (S+QVs)
Since both of the structures contain que and inversion is the least common main morphosyntactic type for this question word, it is conceivable that this kind of structure is linked to ‘what’-questions. This supports Prévost’s (2009: 327) and Kleineidam’s (1990: 136) observation that que requires adjacency to the verb. Since complex clitic inversion is ungrammatical (*Et que Gibé pense-t-il de la purée de sa protégée ? / *Et que les autres ont-ils pensé de la visite ?), a different yet morpho-lexically similar structure is used. In other words, the dislocation of the subject is probably employed as a remedy for expressing the subject without breaking the constraint on adjacency between que and the verb.
Since the third interrogative pronoun, i.e. LEQUEL, occurred only 5 times (4 times as a subject and once as an object), the morphosyntactic distribution is not very reliable. Its rare usage seems though quite representative of its general frequency in spoken French: As Druetta (2009: 135)342 inferred from the fact that lequel represented only 3 out of the 375 wh-words of his corpus, the use of this question word seems to be very limited in spoken French. Although all wh-subject occurrences patterned alike (i.e. Q(=)SV; the most recurrent Q={s/S}V example is given as (119), the single occurrence of Q{s/S}V is given as (120)), this should not be taken as an indicator for a categorical constraint. As has been shown in previous studies,343 lequel is not restricted to preverbal declarative structures. Although, to my knowledge, none of the studies conducted so far encountered an inverted structure, inversion too is certainly possible (see numerous examples on the web, of which one is given as (121)).
Alors, lequel de nos chasseurs d’appart’ marquera des points ?344 (Q={s/S}V) Bon, laquelle je prends ?345 (QsV)
340 English translation: ‘And Gibé, what does he think of the mash of his protégé? (UDPP_5_00_56_05)
341 English translation: ‘And the others, what do they think of the visit?’ (BVAH_3_00_22_21)
342 « [C]e pronom doit être d'un emploi fort limité dans presque tous les usages de la langue parlée ».
343 See Quillard (2000), structure (1133) for an instance of c’est lequel and Myers (2007: 156) for an instance of c’est laquelle)
344 English translation: ‘So which of our “flat hunters” will score points?’ This interrogative closed all three episodes of Chasseur d’appart’. (CHAP_1_00_49_28)
345 English translation: ‘So… Which one shall I take?’ (SHOP_1_00_37_23)
156 Chaleur ou glace, lequel dois-je choisir ?346 (QVs)
Its adjective counterpart, i.e. QUEL, seems to be much more common: It surfaced 64 times. Hence, the distribution of morphosyntactic types is comparatively sound. In both functions, inverted structures predominated (14 out of 20 as subject and 33 out of 44 as object), but a few instances of declarative structures occurred as well (see (357) for a wh-preverbal and (123) for a wh-postverbal instance).
While inverted structures with QUELsubject were restricted to the form quel(le)(s) {est/sont/sera} (i.e.
attributive use of QUEL with stylistic inversion; one example is given as (124)), QUELobject surfaced with all three kinds of inversion (see (125) for simple clitic inversion, (126) for complex clitic inversion, and (127) for stylistic inversion).
Quel genre vous cherchez ?347 (QsV) Vous avez quel âge ?348 (sVQ) Quelle est la surprise ?349 (QVS)
Quelles notes vont-ils lui attribuer ?350 (QVs)
Alors quelle influence l’addition aura-t-elle sur leurs jugements ?351 (QSVs) Quelle note va donner Diane-Laure ?352 (QVS)
The interrogative quantifier COMBIEN (‘how much/many’) appeared most often (i.e. 22 times) in-situ (of which one is given as (128)), but wh-fronted declaratives (of which one is given as (129)) were not rare (i.e. 7 occurrences) either. Inverted structures were rather scarce: 1 stylistic inversion (given as (130)) and 1 complex clitic inversion (given as (131)) were observed.353
On en prend combien ?354 (sVQ) Alors, combien je vous dois ?355 (QsV) Combien coûtait la prestation ?356 (QVS)
Alors, combien Guillaume va-t-il obtenir pour sa salle ?357 (QSVs)
Of the adverbial question words, QUAND (‘when’) was the least frequent one: There were only 3 occurrences, of which 1 was elliptical. The two remaining structures (of which the first one is given as (132) 358) both contained EST-CE QUE. Since they were part of an interview answer and uttered in
346 English translation: ‘Heat or ice, which one should I choose?’ Source: http://physiomedic.ca/chaleur-ou-glace-lequel-dois-je-choisir/ [20/11/17]
347 English translation: ‘What kind are you looking for?’ (SHOP_1_00_41_18)
348 English translation: ‘How old are you?’ (MBOU_5_00_21_35) Interestingly, all in-situ structures were with avoirconjugated quel âge.
349 English translation: ‘What is the surprise?’ (CHAP_2_00_18_21)
350 English translation: ‘Which marks will they give him?’ (ADDI_2_01_00_39)
351 English translation: ‘So what influence will the bill have on their judgements?’ (ADDI_2_01_03_41)
352 English translation: ‘Which mark will give Diane-Laure?’ (CSQD_3_00_18_37)
353 Besides, 7 elliptical constructions were found.
354 English translation: ‘How many of them shall we take?’ (QUAM_3_00_34_23)
355 English translation: ‘So how much do I owe you?’ (SHOP_1_00_40_42)
356 English translation: ‘How much was the service?’ (CSQD_4_00_43_07)
357 English translation: ‘So how many points will Guillaume obtain for his room?’ (ADDI_2_00_26_59)
358 The second structure is not completed. The speaker stops after quand est-ce que.
157
sequence by the same person, the limitation to one variant is though not very surprising and does not allow any conclusions about whether the question particle is favoured by QUAND.
Quand est-ce que je vais arrêter de pleurer ?359 (QEsV)
The vast majority of the OÙ (‘where’) questions (i.e. 32 out of 42) were formulated as wh-in-situ structures (of which two are given as (133) and (134)). Apart from this structure, there were only 4 wh-fronted declarative (of which two are given as (135) and (136)), 2 periphrastic (given as (137) and (138)), 3 stylistically inverted (given as (139) and (140)) and 1 elliptical structures.
On va où du coup ?360 (sVQ) Il est où, le sel ?361 (sVQ+S) Où c’est ?362 (QsV)
Alors, où nous sommes, nous ?363 (QsV+s) Où est-ce que j’arrive ?364 (QEsV)
Alors, où est-ce qu’on va mettre ça ?365 (QEsV) Où est cachée Maya l’Abeille ?366 (QVS) Où se déroule le mariage de Dani ?367 (QVS)
In contrast, the French how-equivalent, i.e. COMMENT, occurred most often in the form of a wh-fronted declarative: Almost half of the occurrences with a conjugated verb (i.e. 45 out of 91)368 were QsV-structures (of which one is given as (141)). Wh-in-situ was though not rare either: With 26 occurrences, sVQ was the second-most common structure (of which one is given as (142)). Inverted structures came to 19 occurrences (7 simple clitic inversion, of which one is given as (143); 4 complex clitic inversions, of which one is given as (144); and 8 stylistic inversions, of which one is given as (145)), and there were only single occurrences of full (given as (146)) and reduced (given as (147)) EST-CE QUE.
Comment vous faites pour manger de la chèvre ?369 (QsV) Et au niveau de l’électricité, on fait comment ?370 (sVQ) Comment vont-ils réagir ?371 (QVs)
Comment Laetitia et Christian se sont-ils rencontrés ?372 (QSVs) Comment va Silvain ?373 (QVS)
359 English translation: ‘When will I stop crying?’ (QUAM_3_00_48_09)
360 English translation: ‘So where are we going?’ (SHOP_2_00_33_27)
361 English translation: ‘Where’s the salt?’ (MBOU_1_00_18_14)
362 English translation: ‘Where is that?’ (ADDI_1_00_35_43)
363 English translation: ‘So where are we?’ (ADDI_1_00_58_25)
364 English translation: ‘Where am I coming?’ (ADDI_3_00_08_22)
365 English translation: ‘All right… Where shall we put this?’ (MBOU_3_00_10_42)
366 English translation: ‘Where is Maya the Bee?’ (MBOU_2_00_29_57)
367 English translation: ‘Where does Dani’s wedding take place?’ (QUAM_3_00_48_40)
368 Additionally, there were 3 infinitive and 6 (other) elliptical interrogatives.
369 English translation: ‘How do you do for eating goat?’ (BVNC_3_00_48_05)
370 English translation: ‘And electricity-wise, what do we have to do?’ (BVAC_1_00_22_55)
371 English translation: ‘How will they react?’ (QUAM_1_00_02_48)
372 English translation: ‘How did Laetitia and Christian meet?’ (BVAH_2_00_44_44)
373 English translation: ‘How is Silvain?’ (UDPP_1_00_25_00)
158 Comment est-ce qu’ils vont faire ?374 (QEsV) Comment que ça marche, ça ?375 (QksV+s)
An even stronger link to the QsV-structure could be observed for POURQUOI (‘why’): All of the 11
An even stronger link to the QsV-structure could be observed for POURQUOI (‘why’): All of the 11