This course draws upon knowledge acquired in Linguistics Seminars I, II, and III. It will focus on the study of partial questions (featuring an interrogative expression such as "who," "what," "where," "when," etc.) and their answers. French is characterized by having a wide array of structures to convey what appears to be the same request for information (e.g., "Qu'est-ce que tu lis ?", "Que lis-tu ?", "Tu lis quoi ?", "C'est quoi que tu lis ?"). Following a review of the primary empirical studies, we will investigate the diverse hypotheses that have been proposed to account for this phenomenon. Do these structures correspond to distinct grammars of French (e.g., standard vs. dialectal)? Are they genuinely equivalent on the semantic and discursive levels? Is French truly distinct from other languages (such as German or English) that do not display the same wealth of structures? We will explore how constraints on the proper syntactic and prosodic formation of answers to questions can help in understanding the coexistence of a multitude of interrogative constructions in French. This will allow us to introduce concepts in Optimality Theory and Prosodic Phonology.

Students from other graduate programs may submit assignments in English with approval of the instructor.