Contraintes syntaxiques et semantiques sur l'intensification implicite: un cas non standard de la construction intensive de consequence

This thesis examines the syntactic and semantic aspects of implicit intensification in a nonstandard French construction of the type Marie est belle qu'on en reste ebahi. This construction is characterised by the presence of a phrasal modifier (the prop-que) whose role is to evaluate extreme measures linked to a predicate in the main clause ( belle). The modifier operates on measure scales and delimits the real measure by relating it to the consequence which it expresses. Given that this type of correlative evaluation also describes the intensive consecutive construction (CIC), in which intensification is lexically expressed by the intensity markers tellement, si, etc., we propose that the nonstandard construction is an implicit type of the CIC. The implicit CIC has never before been studied within the framework of generative grammar (Chomsky 1993, 1995, 2000). The main goal of this thesis is to provide a detailed description of the properties of this construction, to identify the constraints to which it is subject, and to propose a derivational link between the implicit and the explicit CIC. A systematic comparison of the properties of the two types of the CIC shows that the implicit CIC is more restricted. The restrictions include lack of embedding under a factive verb and incompatibility with interrogative clause type. A direct link can be established between the different restrictions in terms of the pragmatic notion of assertion and speaker presence. The analysis we propose for the implicit CIC, based on Bhatt and Pancheva's (2004, 2007) late merge analysis of degree constructions, instantiates this assertion link in the form of a functional projection at the level of the left periphery (Haegeman 2006; Speas and Tenny 2003). This projection, as well as the merge of the phrasal modifier, lead to the interpretation and the licensing of the empty category which, as we argue, expresses the implicit intensification at a structural level.