Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics (Jan 2009)
The dramatic extraction construction in French
Abstract
Relying on spoken corpora (Corpaix, CRFP) and on previous studies (Sabio 1995, 1996), we identify a construction common in spoken French, which we analyze as a particular case of extraction:a. dix sept ans il a. (Seventeen years he has) [Corpaix]b. deux cigarettes j'ai fumé. (Two cigarettes I smoked) [on the fly]The construction can only be a root clause and a declarative clause. Its interpretation is that of a thetic proposition. On the other hand, it is not associated with a unique information structure, since it is compatible with a focus-ground partition, with the extracted constotunet as a narrow focus, or with an all focus interpretation. We call this construction ‘dramatic extraction’, and the extracted element a ‘center’ (i.e. a focus or a figure). We formalize our analysis in the HPSG grammar.
