Topic-comment resumptive pronouns in Modern French and Old and Middle French

Abstract

Topic-comment structures in Old and Middle French allow null resumptive pronouns in the comment clause when the topic is referential, whereas the resumptive pronoun must be overt in Modern French. I explore this difference in terms of feature checking on the resumptive pronoun (Uriagereka 1995, Sportiche 1996) within Rizzi's (1997) split CP system. I suggest that referential features are overtly checked in archaic French, establishing the necessary predication relation between the topic and the empty category in the comment clause before Spell-Out. On the other hand, these features are covertly checked in Modern French, so that the predication relation is dependant on an overtly realized object clitic at Spell-Out. Feature strength is understood to be a function of the categorial status of the object clitic, argued to be morphologically weaker in Modern French. Instances of clitic-drop are therefore seen to be significantly different during the two stages of French.

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