French inversions in contrast

The three inversion types of French are put in a synchronic comparative perspective with respect to Dutch and Italian. One, complex inversion, is unique. Pronominal inversion not only shares the syntactic derivation with Dutch, but also the conditions of use, with one lexical exception, anteposed aussi. Nominal inversion appears to not only share the syntactic derivation with Italian, but also the focus property of some non-interrogative inverted structures. On a more abstract general level, we argue in favour of an hypothesis according to which the actual use of both inversion types in French form proper subsets of their actual uses in Dutch and Italian respectively.