Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T13:20:30.877Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

French prepositions:no peeking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2020

Arnold M. Zwicky
Arnold M. Zwicky*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University and Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Spatial location and direction are expressed in French primarily by means of prepositional phrases involving three different prepositions:en, dans and à. Disregarding the usual collection of fixed expressions, lexical idiosyncrasies and subtle pragmatic and stylistic effects, the large generalisation about spatial PPs is that dans and a tend to be used with objects understood referentially, as in (1) and (2) (such ‘determinate’ or ‘particularised’ NPs will typically have a determiner in them), while en is used with non-referential objects, as in (3) (these will typically lack a determiner):

(1) a. dans la prison ‘in(to) the prison’

b. dans une prison ‘in(to) a prison’

(2) a l'ecole ‘in(to) the school’

(3) en prison ‘in(to) prison’

Type
Research Article
Information
Phonology , Volume 4 , May 1987 , pp. 211 - 227
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

My thanks to Yves-Charles Morin for jogging me into writing up this sketch of my position on referential en and the fused forms, and to Morin, Donna Jo Napoli, Joel Nevis and Jerrold Sadock for their comments on the version of October 1986; they are not of course responsible for what I have done, or not done, with their suggestions and criticisms. As a non-specialist in French linguistics, I am indebted to Grevisse (1964) and Judge & Healey (1983), which served as the sources for many data that are not specifically credited here.

References

Cornulier, Benoit De (1972).A peeking rule in French. LI 3. 226–227.Google Scholar
Dressler, Wolfgang U. (1985). Morphonology: the dynamics of derivation. Ann Arbor: Karoma Press.Google Scholar
Grebe, Paul (1959). Duden Grammatik der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. Mannheim: Duden.Google Scholar
Grevisse, Maurice (1964). Le bon usage: grammaire francaise avec des remarques stir la langue francaise damplsquo;aujourdamprsquo; hui. 8th edn. Gembloux: J. Duculot.Google Scholar
Hill, Jane H. (1970). A peeking rule in Cupeno. LI X. 534–539.Google Scholar
Hinrichs, Erhard W. (1984). Attachment of articles and prepositions in German: simple cliticization or inflected prepositions? Working Papers in Linguistics, Ohio State University 29. 127–138.Google Scholar
Hinrichs, Erhard W. (1986). Verschmelzungsformen in German: a GPSG. analysis. Revision of Hinrichs (1984). Linguistics 24. 939–955.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Judge, Anne & Healey, F. G. (1983).A reference grammar of Modern French. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Kaisse, Ellen M.(1985). connected speech: the interaction of syntax and phonology. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Labelle, Marie(1985).Caractere post-lexical de la cliticisation francaise. Lingvisticae Investigationes 9. 83–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lapointe, Steven G. (1980). A theory of grammatical agreement. PHD dissertation University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Nespor, Marina & Irene, Vogel (1982). Prosodic domains of external sandhi rules. In Harry, van der Hulst & Norval, Smith (eds.) The structure of phonological representations. Vol. I. Dordrecht: Foris. 225–255.Google Scholar
Nevis, Joel A. (1986). Finish particle clitics and general clitic theory. Working Papers in Linguistics, Ohio State University 33. 1985 PHD dissertation, Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold M. (1985). Autolexical syntax: a theory of noun incorporation and similar phenomena. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3. 379–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selkirk, Elisabeth O. (1980). The phrase phonology of English and French. New York: Garland. 1972 PHD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Tranel, Bernard(1981). Concreteness in generative phonology. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. (1969). Phonological constraints in syntactic descriptions. Papers in Linguistics I. 411–463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M.(1984). ‘Reduced words’ in highly modular theories: Yiddish anarthrous locatives reexamined. Working Papers in Linguistics, Ohio State University 29. 117–126.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. (1985a). How to describe inflection. BLS II. 372–386.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. (1985b). Rules of allomorphy and syntax-phonology interactions. JL. 21 431–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. (1986). Incorporating the insights of Autolexical Syntax. Working Papers in Linguistics, Ohio State University 32. 139–143.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. (1987). Suppressing the Zs. JL 23. 133–148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. Earlier version (1986) in Working Papers in Linguistics, Ohio State University 32. 149–156.Google Scholar
Zwicky, Arnold M. & Pullum, Geoffrey K. (1986). The Principle of Phonology-free Syntax: introductory remarks. Working Papers in Linguistics, Ohio State University 32. 63–91.Google Scholar