In this chapter the author attempts to shed some light on a few systematic differences between French and English with respect to the syntax of sentence negation, questions, adverbs, floating quantifiers, and quantification at a distance. In line with much recent work in comparative syntax, he suggests that the differences between the two languages in these seemingly unrelated areas can, and therefore should, be correlated. The author shows that they can be deduced from the structure of Universal Grammar and one abstract parameter having to do with what he calls the “opacity” or “transparency” of Agr(eement) in French and (Modern) English. The author then adopts an approach to the structure of IP that is more highly articulated than most contemporary work would seem to suggest.
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