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Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2010

Wh-questions in French and English

Résumé

As opposed to English, French wh-questions can take a wide variety of forms. I identify four basic patterns: (a) wh- in situ: Vous êtes allés où?; (b) wh- raised, verb in situ: Où vous êtes allés?; (c) est-ce que insertion: Où est-ce que vous êtes allés?; (d) subject-clitic inversion: Où êtes-vous allés?, and argue that these are in fact ‘allo-questions’. Based on a review of historical factors, as well as on recent corpus studies, I show that each of the four question types corresponds to a distinct pragmatic function and compare French and English usage. Finally, wh- in situ constructions are formally analysed as a covert form of multiple wh-question, using an unselective binding mechanism.

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Dates et versions

hal-03382603 , version 1 (18-10-2021)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03382603 , version 1
  • OKINA : ua4765

Citer

Paul Boucher. Wh-questions in French and English. Comparative and Contrastive Studies of Information Structure, 12, John Benjamins Publishing Compagny, pp.101 - 138, 2010, 978 90 272 5548 8. ⟨hal-03382603⟩

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