Pierre Larrivée | Université de Caen Normandie (original) (raw)

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Papers by Pierre Larrivée

Scolia, 2020

pierre larrivée vernaculaire actuel est une langue discursive, dont la syntaxe marque la valeur d... more pierre larrivée vernaculaire actuel est une langue discursive, dont la syntaxe marque la valeur d'information ancienne et nouvelle des constituants (De Cat, 2008 ; voir aussi Lambrecht, 1987). Cette caractérisation du français comme langue discursive laisse attendre un ensemble de réalisations associées à des schémas récurrents. On suppose depuis l'hypothèse du CP éclaté de Rizzi (1997) que des projections associent des syntagmes à des valeurs discursives. Situées dans la périphérie gauche qui assure le lien avec le contexte antécédent, les projections de Topique et celle de Focus peuvent accueillir les différentes configurations à valeur d'information ancienne et nouvelle. Ceci étant, les nominativus pendens (1), les dislocations (2), les topicalisations (3) et le focus initial (4) ne sont pas tous réalisés avec la même fréquence dans toutes les langues. 1) Und Gesang-habt ihr denn hier irgendwie so einen Lehrer… ? (Nolda, 2013 : 429) Et chanter-tu as un professeur ? 2) Moi, les huîtres panées, ça m'écoeure. 3) (She claims she speaks Basque,) and speak Basque she does. Elle disait qu'elle parlait basque, et effectivement, pour parler basque elle parle basque. 4) Cecilia ho invitato. (voir Bianchi, 2013 : 193) C'est Cécile que j'ai invitée.

Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, 2022

An ongoing debate concerns the degree of diglossia of contemporary French, by which vernacular an... more An ongoing debate concerns the degree of diglossia of contemporary French, by which vernacular and normative registers display significant grammatical differences. Was diglossia characterizing Medieval French? This question is explored through the study of unambiguous V2 configurations. The word order has been shown to display rates of use and informational behavior correlating to register. The correlation is investigated in novel data relating to narration vs. dialogue and to correspondence by members of different social classes. Quantitative analysis shows that variation in V2 behavior remains determined by formality. The proposed methods thus help measure diglossia of previous states of languages.

Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2019

It is widely assumed that Medieval French V2 constructions relate to an informational value (Labe... more It is widely assumed that Medieval French V2 constructions relate to an informational value (Labelle & Hirschbühler 2018 i.a.). This assumption is however rarely tested by quantitative studies, which tend to rely on heterogeneous textual material. The purpose of this paper is to document the informational value of preverbal complements that associate with (unambiguous) V2 configurations. I use a novel, homogeneous corpus of prose legal texts from the Normandy region over the period 1150–1475. Defining a decision tree, I determine the informational value of V2 complements, specifically whether they represent old information (explicit mentioned, anaphoric, accommodated or inferable) or new information. A categorical discourse-old value is evidenced for preverbal V2 complements for the period between 1150 and 1236. The loss of the categorical informational value precedes the decline of V2 as a productive configuration with the emergence of formulaic uses. The detailed documentation of ...

Glossa, 2019

It is widely assumed that Medieval French V2 constructions relate to an informational value (Labe... more It is widely assumed that Medieval French V2 constructions relate to an informational value (Labelle & Hirschbühler 2018 i.a.). This assumption is however rarely tested by quantitative studies, which tend to rely on heterogeneous textual material. The purpose of this paper is to document the informational value of preverbal complements that associate with (unambiguous) V2 configurations. I use a novel, homogeneous corpus of prose legal texts from the Normandy region over the period 1150-1475. Defining a decision tree, I determine the informational value of V2 complements, specifically whether they represent old information (explicit mentioned, anaphoric, accommodated or inferable) or new information. A categorical discourse-old value is evidenced for preverbal V2 complements for the period between 1150 and 1236. The loss of the categorical informational value precedes the decline of V2 as a productive configuration with the emergence of formulaic uses. The detailed documentation of ...

This paper provides conclusive evidence forcing to reassess the chronology of the loss of pro-dro... more This paper provides conclusive evidence forcing to reassess the chronology of the loss of pro-drop in Old French. The assumption that null subjects start to be lost in the XIIIth century and become a minority option in the XVth is shown to be debatable due to the considerable variation displayed in the traditionally used literary data. A steadier pattern of evolution is demonstrated by novel non-literary data. The analysis demonstrates that by 1200, Old French has already lost the null subject option. Correlations with clause type (main vs. subordinate) and use of impersonal are shown to differ from what is found in literary material.

Linguistics

While Negative Polarity Items are generally ungrammatical in veridical environments (*I said anyt... more While Negative Polarity Items are generally ungrammatical in veridical environments (*I said anything), they are known to be found in factive environments that involve veridicality (I regret you said anything). There is however disagreement in the literature about the types of factive environments in which any is found. This paper proposes the first systematic large-scale survey of the use of any with factive predicates. Based on corpora totaling nearly 5 billion words, the paper establishes the relative frequency of any licensed by the different factive predicates (epistemic factives, as well positive, negative and counterexpectative emotives). Negative emotive factives (e.g. regret) were found to license any 1.8 times more frequently than counterexpectative factives (be amazed), which license any 25.8 times more than do positive emotives (be glad). Emotive factives are associated with counterfactual preferences and expectations that make available a negative reading that licenses ...

Linguistic Analysis, 1997

Le relevé des occurrences de nul dans une variété de textes légaux sur quatre siècles et leur cla... more Le relevé des occurrences de nul dans une variété de textes légaux sur quatre siècles et leur classement selon le contexte d'emploi livrent les données suivantes :

Journal of Historical Linguistics, 2020

The purpose of this paper is to provide quantitative substantiation for the role of bridging cont... more The purpose of this paper is to provide quantitative substantiation for the role of bridging context in grammatical change. Bridging contexts are assumed to be environments compatible with the new function that an item is acquiring. The evolving item would therefore be predicted to occur in bridging contexts at significant rates just before the change. To test this prediction , the well-known evolution of Negative Polarity Items into an n-word is analysed, using the well-documented case of the aucun in the history of French. Charting its course in a monogeneric corpus of narrative legal material, we find that the item occurs in strong negative polarity environments at rates of over 50% before it is found in a majority of n-word uses. This supports the view that bridging contexts are instrumental to change, and that they involve quantitative conditions.

International Review of Pragmatics 12, 2020

The meaning of indefinites of the wh-ever paradigm has been the object of a number of claims rega... more The meaning of indefinites of the wh-ever paradigm has been the object of a number of claims regarding its ignorance and indifference readings. These are examined here in the light of a systematic analysis of 2500 occurrences of the wh-ever paradigm in the Brigham-Young-University TV-corpus. Contrary to general assumptions, ignorance and indifference readings are not separate, as they are found jointly in 27% of occurrences. Each reading is sensitive to contextual cues: ignorance associates with animacy, and is compatible with plural nouns; indifference associates with independent use, subtrig-ging by modals and singular nouns. Finally, scalarity is not a dominant dimension of the wh-items' interpretation, being associated with subtrigging by modal expressions and focus stress, and requiring an indifference reading. These items are defined as evoking an unidentified referent requiring identification belonging to an open-ended series of possibilities.

CLUB Working Papers in Linguistics, volume 3, University of Bologne, Italy, 2019

This paper revisits the definition of metalinguistic negation (MLN) illustrated by e.g. They don'... more This paper revisits the definition of metalinguistic negation (MLN) illustrated by e.g. They don't have kids, they have children. A new definition is proposed that rests on two properties. The first is that MLN is a corrective speech-act. The second is that the sentence used to perform the speech-act has a paradoxical Information Structure: it is discourse-old material, along with the corrected a segment that is however treated as discourse-new by virtue of being focused and contrasted to the correcting segment. These properties are used to explain established features of MLN. MLN's speech-act status accounts for the distinctive behaviour of relevant connectives. The paradoxical Information Structure distinguishes MLN from other uses of negation, relates it to other corrective constructions and metalinguistic phenomena (e.g. in conditionals and questions) and accounts for the alleged marked status of metalinguistic configurations. How MLN can be mapped by a cartographic approach is speculated upon.

Can syntax account for pragmatic distinctions? This is the question that forms the central line o... more Can syntax account for pragmatic distinctions? This is the question that forms the central line of enquiry of this article. It considers whether or not pre-suppositional negatives fi nd a specifi c place in sentential architecture. Two types of presuppositional negatives are identifi ed and criteria are proposed to distinguish activated  om emphatic negatives. The cross-linguistic evidence that we review shows that activated negatives involve an agreement mechanism targeting two positions. Following proposals by Haegeman (2009), agreement in a high CP position predicts the Main Clause distribution of the relevant negators, which is not the case when agreement operates in a low IP position. The features driving the agreement process distinguish the diff erent sub-cases of presuppositional negatives (Hernanz 2006), and are proposed to be learned via a Gricean reasoning following which a minority grammatical option in a paradigm must express a marked reading. Feature-checking in dedicated positions can thus make sense of the cross-linguistic variety of markers of presuppositional negation, and of the stability of the notions involved.

SHS Web of Conferences, 2016

Labov’s idea that the vernacular is the most stable variety of a language raises questions especi... more Labov’s idea that the vernacular is the most stable variety of a language raises questions especially where languages of wider communication are concerned. Whether the vernacular practices of a language’s geographical varieties are convergent synchronically and historically can be established by looking at particular variables. One such variable is investigated in this paper on the co-occurrence of a clausal negator with a n-word (e.g. I didn’t do nothing, i.e. anything). e quantitative study of negative doubling in Quebec and France historical and contemporary vernacular sources demonstrates overall stability for France from the 14th century to the present. at negative doubling is ten-fold more frequent in contemporary vernacular Quebec French than in contemporary vernacular France French may be dues to difficulty in accessing the vernacular in France French and in the presumed lesser impact of normative pressures in Quebec. Tracking one variable over six centuries provides evidence that stability characterises vernacular varieties.

Scolia, 2020

pierre larrivée vernaculaire actuel est une langue discursive, dont la syntaxe marque la valeur d... more pierre larrivée vernaculaire actuel est une langue discursive, dont la syntaxe marque la valeur d'information ancienne et nouvelle des constituants (De Cat, 2008 ; voir aussi Lambrecht, 1987). Cette caractérisation du français comme langue discursive laisse attendre un ensemble de réalisations associées à des schémas récurrents. On suppose depuis l'hypothèse du CP éclaté de Rizzi (1997) que des projections associent des syntagmes à des valeurs discursives. Situées dans la périphérie gauche qui assure le lien avec le contexte antécédent, les projections de Topique et celle de Focus peuvent accueillir les différentes configurations à valeur d'information ancienne et nouvelle. Ceci étant, les nominativus pendens (1), les dislocations (2), les topicalisations (3) et le focus initial (4) ne sont pas tous réalisés avec la même fréquence dans toutes les langues. 1) Und Gesang-habt ihr denn hier irgendwie so einen Lehrer… ? (Nolda, 2013 : 429) Et chanter-tu as un professeur ? 2) Moi, les huîtres panées, ça m'écoeure. 3) (She claims she speaks Basque,) and speak Basque she does. Elle disait qu'elle parlait basque, et effectivement, pour parler basque elle parle basque. 4) Cecilia ho invitato. (voir Bianchi, 2013 : 193) C'est Cécile que j'ai invitée.

Isogloss. Open Journal of Romance Linguistics, 2022

An ongoing debate concerns the degree of diglossia of contemporary French, by which vernacular an... more An ongoing debate concerns the degree of diglossia of contemporary French, by which vernacular and normative registers display significant grammatical differences. Was diglossia characterizing Medieval French? This question is explored through the study of unambiguous V2 configurations. The word order has been shown to display rates of use and informational behavior correlating to register. The correlation is investigated in novel data relating to narration vs. dialogue and to correspondence by members of different social classes. Quantitative analysis shows that variation in V2 behavior remains determined by formality. The proposed methods thus help measure diglossia of previous states of languages.

Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 2019

It is widely assumed that Medieval French V2 constructions relate to an informational value (Labe... more It is widely assumed that Medieval French V2 constructions relate to an informational value (Labelle & Hirschbühler 2018 i.a.). This assumption is however rarely tested by quantitative studies, which tend to rely on heterogeneous textual material. The purpose of this paper is to document the informational value of preverbal complements that associate with (unambiguous) V2 configurations. I use a novel, homogeneous corpus of prose legal texts from the Normandy region over the period 1150–1475. Defining a decision tree, I determine the informational value of V2 complements, specifically whether they represent old information (explicit mentioned, anaphoric, accommodated or inferable) or new information. A categorical discourse-old value is evidenced for preverbal V2 complements for the period between 1150 and 1236. The loss of the categorical informational value precedes the decline of V2 as a productive configuration with the emergence of formulaic uses. The detailed documentation of ...

Glossa, 2019

It is widely assumed that Medieval French V2 constructions relate to an informational value (Labe... more It is widely assumed that Medieval French V2 constructions relate to an informational value (Labelle & Hirschbühler 2018 i.a.). This assumption is however rarely tested by quantitative studies, which tend to rely on heterogeneous textual material. The purpose of this paper is to document the informational value of preverbal complements that associate with (unambiguous) V2 configurations. I use a novel, homogeneous corpus of prose legal texts from the Normandy region over the period 1150-1475. Defining a decision tree, I determine the informational value of V2 complements, specifically whether they represent old information (explicit mentioned, anaphoric, accommodated or inferable) or new information. A categorical discourse-old value is evidenced for preverbal V2 complements for the period between 1150 and 1236. The loss of the categorical informational value precedes the decline of V2 as a productive configuration with the emergence of formulaic uses. The detailed documentation of ...

This paper provides conclusive evidence forcing to reassess the chronology of the loss of pro-dro... more This paper provides conclusive evidence forcing to reassess the chronology of the loss of pro-drop in Old French. The assumption that null subjects start to be lost in the XIIIth century and become a minority option in the XVth is shown to be debatable due to the considerable variation displayed in the traditionally used literary data. A steadier pattern of evolution is demonstrated by novel non-literary data. The analysis demonstrates that by 1200, Old French has already lost the null subject option. Correlations with clause type (main vs. subordinate) and use of impersonal are shown to differ from what is found in literary material.

Linguistics

While Negative Polarity Items are generally ungrammatical in veridical environments (*I said anyt... more While Negative Polarity Items are generally ungrammatical in veridical environments (*I said anything), they are known to be found in factive environments that involve veridicality (I regret you said anything). There is however disagreement in the literature about the types of factive environments in which any is found. This paper proposes the first systematic large-scale survey of the use of any with factive predicates. Based on corpora totaling nearly 5 billion words, the paper establishes the relative frequency of any licensed by the different factive predicates (epistemic factives, as well positive, negative and counterexpectative emotives). Negative emotive factives (e.g. regret) were found to license any 1.8 times more frequently than counterexpectative factives (be amazed), which license any 25.8 times more than do positive emotives (be glad). Emotive factives are associated with counterfactual preferences and expectations that make available a negative reading that licenses ...

Linguistic Analysis, 1997

Le relevé des occurrences de nul dans une variété de textes légaux sur quatre siècles et leur cla... more Le relevé des occurrences de nul dans une variété de textes légaux sur quatre siècles et leur classement selon le contexte d'emploi livrent les données suivantes :

Journal of Historical Linguistics, 2020

The purpose of this paper is to provide quantitative substantiation for the role of bridging cont... more The purpose of this paper is to provide quantitative substantiation for the role of bridging context in grammatical change. Bridging contexts are assumed to be environments compatible with the new function that an item is acquiring. The evolving item would therefore be predicted to occur in bridging contexts at significant rates just before the change. To test this prediction , the well-known evolution of Negative Polarity Items into an n-word is analysed, using the well-documented case of the aucun in the history of French. Charting its course in a monogeneric corpus of narrative legal material, we find that the item occurs in strong negative polarity environments at rates of over 50% before it is found in a majority of n-word uses. This supports the view that bridging contexts are instrumental to change, and that they involve quantitative conditions.

International Review of Pragmatics 12, 2020

The meaning of indefinites of the wh-ever paradigm has been the object of a number of claims rega... more The meaning of indefinites of the wh-ever paradigm has been the object of a number of claims regarding its ignorance and indifference readings. These are examined here in the light of a systematic analysis of 2500 occurrences of the wh-ever paradigm in the Brigham-Young-University TV-corpus. Contrary to general assumptions, ignorance and indifference readings are not separate, as they are found jointly in 27% of occurrences. Each reading is sensitive to contextual cues: ignorance associates with animacy, and is compatible with plural nouns; indifference associates with independent use, subtrig-ging by modals and singular nouns. Finally, scalarity is not a dominant dimension of the wh-items' interpretation, being associated with subtrigging by modal expressions and focus stress, and requiring an indifference reading. These items are defined as evoking an unidentified referent requiring identification belonging to an open-ended series of possibilities.

CLUB Working Papers in Linguistics, volume 3, University of Bologne, Italy, 2019

This paper revisits the definition of metalinguistic negation (MLN) illustrated by e.g. They don'... more This paper revisits the definition of metalinguistic negation (MLN) illustrated by e.g. They don't have kids, they have children. A new definition is proposed that rests on two properties. The first is that MLN is a corrective speech-act. The second is that the sentence used to perform the speech-act has a paradoxical Information Structure: it is discourse-old material, along with the corrected a segment that is however treated as discourse-new by virtue of being focused and contrasted to the correcting segment. These properties are used to explain established features of MLN. MLN's speech-act status accounts for the distinctive behaviour of relevant connectives. The paradoxical Information Structure distinguishes MLN from other uses of negation, relates it to other corrective constructions and metalinguistic phenomena (e.g. in conditionals and questions) and accounts for the alleged marked status of metalinguistic configurations. How MLN can be mapped by a cartographic approach is speculated upon.

Can syntax account for pragmatic distinctions? This is the question that forms the central line o... more Can syntax account for pragmatic distinctions? This is the question that forms the central line of enquiry of this article. It considers whether or not pre-suppositional negatives fi nd a specifi c place in sentential architecture. Two types of presuppositional negatives are identifi ed and criteria are proposed to distinguish activated  om emphatic negatives. The cross-linguistic evidence that we review shows that activated negatives involve an agreement mechanism targeting two positions. Following proposals by Haegeman (2009), agreement in a high CP position predicts the Main Clause distribution of the relevant negators, which is not the case when agreement operates in a low IP position. The features driving the agreement process distinguish the diff erent sub-cases of presuppositional negatives (Hernanz 2006), and are proposed to be learned via a Gricean reasoning following which a minority grammatical option in a paradigm must express a marked reading. Feature-checking in dedicated positions can thus make sense of the cross-linguistic variety of markers of presuppositional negation, and of the stability of the notions involved.

SHS Web of Conferences, 2016

Labov’s idea that the vernacular is the most stable variety of a language raises questions especi... more Labov’s idea that the vernacular is the most stable variety of a language raises questions especially where languages of wider communication are concerned. Whether the vernacular practices of a language’s geographical varieties are convergent synchronically and historically can be established by looking at particular variables. One such variable is investigated in this paper on the co-occurrence of a clausal negator with a n-word (e.g. I didn’t do nothing, i.e. anything). e quantitative study of negative doubling in Quebec and France historical and contemporary vernacular sources demonstrates overall stability for France from the 14th century to the present. at negative doubling is ten-fold more frequent in contemporary vernacular Quebec French than in contemporary vernacular France French may be dues to difficulty in accessing the vernacular in France French and in the presumed lesser impact of normative pressures in Quebec. Tracking one variable over six centuries provides evidence that stability characterises vernacular varieties.

13h.30-14h.30 – J. Moeschler (Université de Genève): Qu’y a-t-il de métareprésentationnel dans la... more 13h.30-14h.30 – J. Moeschler (Université de Genève): Qu’y a-t-il de métareprésentationnel dans la négation métalinguistique?
14h.30-15h.30 – Ph. Schlenker (Institut Jean-Nicod, CNRS; Université de New York): Logique et iconicité en langue des signes
15h.30-16h – pause café
16h-17h – A. Morgenstern (Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle): Signes linguistiques et non linguistiques dans les interactions adulte-enfant
17h-17h30: discussion finale