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Article published In: Morphology and its interfaces: Syntax, semantics and the lexicon
Edited by Dany Amiot, Delphine Tribout, Natalia Grabar, Cédric Patin and Fayssal Tayalati
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes 37:2] 2014
► pp. 194–208

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[non-Adj] sequences in French

Morphological negation, syntactic negation, or in-between?

 | CNRS UMR 8163 — Université Lille 3 Charles de Gaulle
Published online: 22 May 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/li.37.2.01dug
This paper addresses the status and formation of [non-Adj] sequences in French, such as non occupé ‘non-occupied’, non effaçable ‘non-erasable’. These sequences can be compared to two other types of negative constructions which are built in morphology, namely [non-N]N (e.g. non occupation, non violence) and [in-Adj] (e.g. inoccupé ‘unoccupied’, ineffaçable ‘unerasable’). Taking as a starting point the observation made by Gaatone (1971, 1987) that [non-Adj] have syntactic properties which differ from that of [in-Adj], I use authentic data drawn from different corpora to determine whether [non-Adj] are formed in morphology or in syntax, and I attempt to provide a constructional account (Goldberg, 1995; Croft, 2001; Booij, 2010) of these sequences.
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