This article explores an unexpected extraction pattern out of adjuncts, as in What did John die whistling? and What did John hurt himself trying to fix? in English. This type of extraction is possible if the adjuncts are predicative and the matrix verbs are either ergative or (inherent) reflexive. The predicativity of the adjuncts is essential in getting these adjuncts interpreted as arguments; this requires coindexation with a thematic role of the verb, which is shown to obtain. Once transparent adjuncts are integrated into the thematic structure of the clause, the resulting representation exhibits the hallmarks of reflexivity. Reflexive predicates must receive appropriate marking. This explains the second requirement on transparent adjuncts: the matrix verbs are precisely of the type capable of licensing reflexivity.

This article argues that the Impersonal Contruction (IC) of French, which displays unaccusative syntax but allows unergative verbs, refutes the Unaccusative Hypothesis (UH) and the principles of lexically driven mapping. It is demonstrated that three types of argument intended to explain unaccusative mismatches are untenable while maintaining the UH. An account of the verbs appearing in the IC is proposed, based on the principles of free linking of arguments and postsyntactic compositional interpretation, taking into account meaning contributed by diverse sources, including lexical, syntactic, constructional, and morphological meaning, which must be compatible. It is argued that the shape of IC sentences requires that a state of affairs be predicated of a locative; various consequences for verb and argument selection and tense arise from this requirement. By removing certain semantico-syntactic functions from the lexicon, economy is achieved in both the lexicon and the syntactic component.

In this article, a system of categorizing the c’esf-cleft into different types is developed, based on their pragmatic, syntactic and prosodic properties. This goal has already been accomplished in English linguistic studies for a similar construction, the it-cleft. The c’est-cleft, however, is found more frequently than the it-cleft, and in many contexts, it is obligatory. In general, in the relative clause of the c’est-cleft, there is an open proposition that is saturated through replacing the missing variable by the element that is found in post-copular position. In most cases, the material found in the relative clause is presupposed; however, there are some cleft types for which this is not necessarily the case. This study is based on Lambrecht’s study of Information Structure.

Many questions about the expressive or distinctive character of focal accent and emphatic prominence remain unanswered in studies concerning natural language prosody. Recent works show that fundamental frequency variation underlies a categorial perception that permits a differenciation in the representation of these two types of prominence. Using data from French, the contribution of each type of prominence to the intonation contour is analyzed. This study reconciles the difference in expressive character and phonological description associated with each prominence type through the use of association rules linking tones and text in different prosodic domains. An instrumental study of 280 utterances documents the phonetic particularities in the production of both prominences, and in neutral utterances.