On Past Participle Agreement in Transitive Clauses in French

Radford, A. and Vincent, M. (2008) On Past Participle Agreement in Transitive Clauses in French. In: XXXIII Incontro di Grammatica Generativa, Bologna, Italy, 01-03 Mar 2007, pp. 142-161.

Abstract

This paper provides a Minimalist analysis of past participle agreement in French in transitive clauses. Our account posits that the head v of vP in such structures carries an (accusativeassigning) structural case feature which may apply (with or without concomitant agreement) to case-mark a clause-mate object, the subject of a defective complement clause, or an intermediate copy of a preposed subject in spec-CP. In structures where a goal is extracted from vP (e.g. via wh-movement) v also carries an edge feature, and may also carry a specificity feature and a set of (number and gender) agreement features. We show how these assumptions account for agreement of a participle with a preposed specific clausemate object or defective-clause subject, and for the absence of agreement with an embedded object, with the complement of an impersonal verb, and with the subject of an embedded (finite or nonfinite) CP complement. We also argue that the absence of agreement marking (in expected contexts) on the participles faitmade and laissélet in infinitive structures is essentially viral in nature. Finally, we claim that obligatory participle agreement with reflexive and reciprocal objects arises because the derivation of reflexives involves A-movement and concomitant agreement.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Radford, Dr Andrew and Vincent, Dr Michele
• Authors: Radford, A., and Vincent, M.
• College/School: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature; College of Social Sciences > School of Social & Environmental Sustainability

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