La syntaxe de seul et seulement

Sammanfattning: The overall aim of this study is to describe a number of different uses of the French "seul" and "seulement", and to account for the observed differences within a generative framework. After an introductory chapter, chapters two and three present a survey of earlier studies. The fourth chapter concerns an empirical study of authentic occurrences of "seul" and seulement", drawn from the press. The empirical study permits us to classify the occurrences into two sets of three groups on the basis of distributional, semantic and syntactic criteria. The fifth chapter shows that it is possible to account for the differences between these groups by a generative phrase structure model. In the first set of three groups, that of "seul", one of the groups includes the occurrences of "seul" that, by their ability to appear in attributive and predicative contexts, are characterized as descriptive adjectives. The next group of occurrences is supposed to correlate with the appearance of "seul" in a position between the article and the noun ("un/le seul N") within the functional layer of DP, specifically as an AP in Spec,NumP, a projection associated with grammatical number. The third group of occurrences differs from the two first, in so far as "seul" in this case is analysed as a quantifier, i.e. as the head of a QP situated immediately above DP. The second set of three groups encompass the occurrences of "seulement". These occurrences divide into groups mainly on the basis of their distribution. The occurrences of the first group are analysed as APs having access to the Spec position of DP/QP, AP and PP. The second group is interpreted in relation to the VP, either to the object or to the entire VP. In these cases, "seulement" is supposed to occur in a functional projection directly above VP. Finally, "seulement" may also appear within the CP layer. Its syntactical properties then closely resemble those of the conjunctions. The sixth chapter hints at the possibility that the different uses of "seul" and "seulement" may result from a grammaticalization process. The last chapter presents the conclusion of the study.