LINGUIST List 12.1713

Tue Jul 3 2001

Qs: Ellipsis/VSO Lang, Negation/Contemporary French

Editor for this issue: Karen Milligan <karenlinguistlist.org>

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Directory

  1. Nasu, Norio, VP-ellipsis in VSO languages
  2. Bruno Estigarribia Fioravanti, Negation in Contemporary French

Message 1: VP-ellipsis in VSO languages

 Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 16:18:21 +0100
From: Nasu, Norio <nnasuessex.ac.uk>
Subject: VP-ellipsis in VSO languages

Dear linguists,

English has sentences where VP is omitted:
(1) John bought a car, but Bill didn't.
(2) I don't know if John can solve the problem, but I'm sure he'll try to.

I would like to know whether VP-ellipsis exists in VSO languages. Also, I
would be grateful if anyone could tell me about articles/books on
VP-ellipsis in those languages.

Please reply to nnasuessex.ac.uk

Thanks in advance.

Norio
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Message 2: Negation in Contemporary French

 Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2001 00:43:34 +0200
From: Bruno Estigarribia Fioravanti <brunildafree.fr>
Subject: Negation in Contemporary French



 Hello everyone,

 I'm currently writing a brief account of negation in 
contemporary French and I'm having trouble finding articles and/or books 
that aren't dated or that provide some original enlightenment. My claim 
would be, basically, that we need to abandon the idea of "ne" dropping 
to explain the different surface forms of negation. Instead, one could 
contend, for instance, that the basic negation is a simple, postponed 
one, and that one has to account for the appearance of "ne", not for its 
"deletion".
 It may lead nowhere, but perhaps it's an idea worth examining.
 I'll summarize. Thanks to everyone.

Bruno Estigarribia Fioravanti
Universite Paris V-Rene Descartes-Sorbonne
Departement de Linguistique generale et appliquee
brunildaonline.fr
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