Specific constructions
The specific syntactic constructions detailed here are:
- “Qu’est-ce-que…?”
- “Est-ce-que…?”
- Causative constructions
- Superlatives
- Comparatives
- Cleft sentences
- Pseudo-cleft sentences
Qu’est-ce que…
qu’est-ce que… is analysed as a cleft construction:
- The head of the clefted element is the second que when it introduces a noun:
- When it introduces a verbal phrase, the head of the clefted element is the verb. For example the sentence Qu’est-ce que tu lis ? (What are you reading?) corresponds to the sentence C’est quoi que tu lis ?. In the second sentence the cleft construction clearly appears: quoi is the clefted element and que tu lis the clause attached to it. Qu’est-ce que … is thus analyzed as a cleft sentence. The first qu’ (i.e. the clefted element) is the head of the whole sentence and governs the right part with an advcl:cleft link. Annotations are similar for qu’est-ce qui… or qui est-ce qui…
Note that when the last que does not play the role of an object, it becomes a SCONJ:
NOTE: In UD_French-Spoken, the tokenisation is different and the token -ce is split into two parts - and ce. This will be changed in the next release)
NOTE: In UD_French-Sequoia and UD_French-FQB, the first example Qu’est-ce que le platine ? construction is analysed as a disclocation (this will be change in the next release).
Est-ce que…
In sentence like Est-ce que tu viens ? (Do you come?), the verb être introduces a verbal complement and it is not considered as an auxiliary but as a plain verb.
Causative
In French causatives are typically constructed with the verb faire. The new argument, the causer, which is the subject of the construction is annotated nsubj:caus, while the initial subject/agent of the verb is demoted and becomes either an object, an indirect object or an oblique complement of the causative construction. The head of a causative construction is the infinitive verb, which governs faire with a aux:caus link. The syntactical subject of the sentence (i.e. the causer) is annotated with nsubj:caus. The true agent of the action described by the causative will be linked to the infinitive verb by an obj:agent, an iobj:agent or an obl:agent relation, depending on the syntactical function it has in the sentence.
N.B.: For more details about the analysis of causatives, see this discussion (which is partly in English and partly in French).
Superlatives
Superlative constructions, le/la/les plus ADJ, are annotated as follows: The head of the construction is the noun. It governs the adjective with the usual amod link and the determiner with a det link. The plus is annotated with an advmod and is a dependant of the adjective. The noun modifier introduced by the preposition de is attached to the noun even though the noun modifier seems more attached to the superlative: la plus haute tour du château can easily become la tour la plus haute du château.
When the superlative is post-posed, the determiner is a dependant of the adjective:
When the superlative is in a cop relation (and the noun is not present in the superlative construction), the head of the superlative construction is the adjective:
Comparatives
In comparative constructions, the adjective is the head. It governs the comparative adverb (plus, moins, aussi etc.) with an advmod link. The comparison element introduced by que is analyzed with [fr-dep/advcl] and is a dependent of the adjective. que is analyzed with mark. N.B.: Here is the universal page for the analysis of comparatives
Cleft sentences
WARNING: This section is outdated.
FrenchSpoken analyzes cleft sentences with fr-dep/acl:cleft when the clefted element is a nominal subject or object. All other clefted elements are analyzed with fr-dep/ccomp:cleft. For cleft sentences constructed with a c’est (or ce sont, c’était etc.), the clefted element is the head of the whole cleft sentence and the syntactical subject c’ receives a fr-dep/nsubj:expl link.
N.B.: Presentative constructions must not be mistaken for cleft sentences. FrenchSpoken annotates those two constructions differently.
In a presentative construction the pronoun c’ has an antecedent whereas the c’ in a cleft sentence does not have one. The c’ of a presentative will thus be annotated with a standard nsubj relation and the c’ of a cleft sentence will be annotated with the nsubj:expl
subrelation (see above).
In the following example, C’ has an obvious antecedent: notre jardinier. The relative clause of the presentative construction is governed by lui with a acl:relcl relation (and not an acl:cleft
relation).
Pseudo-cleft sentences
WARNING: This section is outdated.
To stay consistent with the analysis made for the cleft sentences, and thus to show the similarities between the two types of constructions, the head of a pseudo-cleft sentence is the element that follows the c’est (or c’était etc.). This head governs the left part of the pseudo-cleft construction with a fr-dep/dislocated:cleft link. However the pronoun c’ is not annotated with fr-dep/nsubj:expl (like it is done for clefts). In the case of a pseudo-cleft sentence, it may be considered that c’ stands for dislocated complement (i.e. that c’ has an antecedent and is not an expletiv), this pronoun is thus annotated with the standard nsubj. The pronoun ce is the head of the left part of the pseudo-cleft and governs the relative clause with a standard acl:relcl link.