La syntaxe des coordinations corrélatives
Résumé
Two kinds of coordinate structures can be distinguished in French according to the distribution of conjunctions. In "simplex" coordinations, the conjunction introduces the last conjunct and optionaly appears before non-initial conjuncts (Paul (et) Jean et Marie) while in "correlative" coordinations, which are the focus of this paper, the conjunction appears before each conjunct, including the first one (et Paul *(et) Jean et Marie). We present arguments against asymmetric analyses (e.g. Johannessen 2005) according to which inittial conjunctions should in fact be analyzed as homonymous adverbs (more precisely focus-sensitive adverbs) adjoined to the simplex coordinate phrase. Instead, we propose to adopt a construction-based variant of the symmetric analysis (e.g. Ross 1967) according to which each conjunct is introduced by one and the same conjunction. We couch our analysis in HPSG. Following Abeillé (2003), we assume [conj X] phrases to be head-complement-constructions while keeping coordinate structures apart, as a type of non-headed construction (Pollard and Sag 1994). We define two subtypes of coordinations to account for the distribution and specific properties of simplex and correlatives constructions in French.
