Talk:French pronouns

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Added section on relative pronouns. I put it above the section on demonstrative pronouns because it mentioned relative clauses, and I felt that someone should know about them before they use them with demonstrative pronouns. Also, I think the the grammar I used in my examples are incorrect. Feel free to correct/edit it if you want. --Kurotsyn 04:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Qui est-ce qui

I have added a line explaining qu'est-ce que is a single compound, based on "Acquiring optionality in french wh-questions: an experimental study" by Shalom Zuckerman & Aafke Hulk. Small children use it without knowing it consists of que and est-ce que. Although they don't mention qu'est-ce qui, I'm sure it is also a compound. Now I want to confirm the following things to improve the article.

  1. I think qui est-ce que is not a compound but a construction of an interrogative and est-ce que to avoid inversion, just like où est-ce que and quand est-ce que. If so, children don't use it as often as qu'est-ce que. Am I right?
  2. I have no idea whether qui est-ce qui is a compound or a construction. Is there any source that classifies it to either of them? And qui est-ce qui can always be replaced by qui, am I right?

- TAKASUGI Shinji 10:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure you can find sources that treat each as a single compound and sources that treat each as a construction … as for experimental studies, though, I don't know.
Yes, qui est-ce qui can always be replaced by qui.
—RuakhTALK 13:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
There is no syntactic motivation for treating qu'est-ce que and qui est-ce que as compound forms; it is of course simpler from a pedagogical point of view, and obviously there is some grammaticalization going on. But this is just the structure you would expect if you start with C'est X que Y and make a question about the identity of X (it becomes a wh-form, and the subject clitic ce is inverted). The verb est can appear in different tenses, and you can insert adverbs as usual: « Que serait-ce donc que … ? ». Furthermore, the first element can be replaced by a more complex wh-phrase: « Quel restaurant est-ce que … ? ».
qu'est-ce qui and qui est-ce qui are unfortunately more problematic, since you can't really form questions like « ?Quel restaurant est-ce qui te plairait ? ». I believe it is still possible to change the tense and insert adverbs, however.
CapnPrep 15:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Have you read the article I listed above? I think qu'est-ce que has already been grammaticalized for the following reasons:
  1. I've seen "je ne sais pas qu'est-ce que ...", in which qu'est-ce que works as a single compound, but haven't seen "je ne sais pas que serait-ce que ..." or "je ne sais pas que sont-ce que ..."
  2. I've also found it is sometimes written as one word, quesque.
  3. When you say "c'est un sac qu'elle a acheté," both you and the addressee know she bought something, but I believe there is no such implication when you say "qu'est-ce qu'elle a acheté?"
Anyway, I'm not fluent enough in French, and I may be wrong. - TAKASUGI Shinji 16:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)