A semantic analysis of word order: position of the adjective in French By Linda R. Waugh (review)

764 LANGUAGE, VOLUME 54, NUMBER 3 (1978) A. Borillo, 'Remarques sur l'interrogation indirecte en français', seeks to find the syntactic and semanticproperties that uniquely characterize indirect questions introduced by si by contrasting them with structurally similar processes: direct questions, complement S's, and conditional clauses. She concludes that the main properties are the presence of si and the ability to occur in disjunctive contexts. A. M. Dessaux, ? propos de 4 types de compléments formés avec par et un nom temporel ... ', aims at finding the internal distribution of the constituents of complement time phrases introduced by par, and the transformational properties of these phrases. The investigation reveals the presence of strong dependencies between the constituents of these phrases, but leaves unanswered the question of why certain nouns have a ' specific' meaning in isolation, but a variety ofmeanings after par. C. Leclère, 'Datifs syntaxiques et datif éthique', attempts to determine the sources of the dative interpretation in a number of sentences of the form NP V NP à +NP (human). By examining the semantic properties of the verbs and the kind of meaning relationships the PP bears to them, he is able to establish a number of dative types. M. Gross, 'Sur quelques groupes nominaux complexes', offers an unorthodox solution to the problem posed by strings such as NP prep + NP (e.g. une agression contre Luc), which can be analysed as one constituent or as two separate constituents, viz. NP PP. He proposes a nominalization account for the first analysis, and a solution based on the utilization of operator verbs for the second. L. Picabia, 'Sur trois classes d'adjectifs: en marge de la transformation dite "Tough movement"', shows that a number of constraints exist on the infinitive and severe selectional restrictions on the adjective in sentences for which Tough Movement or Object Deletion transformations can be invoked. J. Tamine, ? propos de l'apposition'; J.-C. Milner, 'Raisonnements linguistiques'; and M. Ronat, 'Grammaire et discours' debate the issue of whether a distinction exists between 'Dislocation qualitative (D.Q.)', a process whereby a quality noun (e.g. l'imbécile) is moved, and 'Apposition (Ap.)' Tamine contests Milner's derivation of Jean, cet imbécile, a cassé la tasse from Cet imbécile de Jean a cassé la tasse via D.Q., arguing instead (based on an examination of written texts) (i) that such a derivation is only a particular case of 'Ap.', and (ii) that 'Ap.' is sensitive to differences between noun classes and to presupposition. Milner's reply strongly re-affirms his original proposal. Ronat, while siding with Milner, shows that certain stylistic phenomena which violate Chomsky's A/A and Subjacency conditions are best explained if one considers the kind of discourse/style (e.g. poetry) where they are found—hence her proposal that they be handled by specific rules. P. Attal, 'Un acte illocutoire de négation', criticizes Lasnik's 1972 account of sentences like (i) Many people saw the movie: they enjoyed it' and (ii) Not many people saw the movie: they enjoyed it.' A disagrees with what he says are L's assumptions that, in (i), the quantified NP has a referent and the anaphoric pronoun can only be coreferential, while (ii) displays 'annullement de reference'. A also rejects L's notions of 'potentially' and 'intrinsically' referential, and attempts to account for the facts within a yet-to-bearticulated theory of speech acts. Despite the tentativeness of some conclusions , the studies contained in this volume contribute significantly to a better understanding ofthe problems investigated, and will stimulate further research. [Jilali Saib, University ofIfe, Nigeria.] A semantic analysis of word order: position of the adjective in French. By Linda R. Waugh. (Cornell linguistic contributions, 1.) Leiden: Brill, 1977. Pp. 231. Readers may already be familiar with the essence of Waugh's analysis from her recent article, 'The semantics and paradigmatics of word order' (Lg. 52.82-107, 1976). In the book, as in the article, the central issue is the variable position of the attributive adjective in French. Most French adjectives may occur either before or after the noun—although, as W rightly points out, the meanings are rarely, if ever, identical. After...