Perfective-auxiliary selection

W e saw in Table 2.3 on page 26 in §2.2.1.2 that, like a number of Romance and Germanic languages, French has a perfect verb paradigm combining a P STP RT and a preceding be or have auxiliary. In the unmarked case avoir ‘to have’

is used. A small set of just over a dozen simple (intransitive) verbs – some 0.3% of the 10,000 verbs listed in the Bescherelle conjugation guide (Leeman-Bouix 1994:

88) – take être ‘to be’, instead, namely: aller ‘to go’, venir ‘to come’, devenir ‘to become’, passer ‘to pass’, arriver ‘to arrive’, partir ‘to leave’, entrer ‘to go in’, sortir ‘to go out’, rester ‘to stay’, retourner ‘to return’, tomber ‘to fall’, naître ‘to be born’, mourir, décéder ‘to die’, descendre ‘to descend’, as well as some, but not all, morphological derivatives. Around twice as many again are compatible with either être or avoir (with subtle semantic contrasts – see below). The auxiliary être is also used with all reflexive verbs. Auxiliaries are non-thematic; they don’t assign a è role. As expected, they are clause mate with the P STP RT whose clitic dependants are realised on the auxiliary, as in (71) (§4.4):

(71) a. J’y ai pensé. b. J’y suis allé.

I-there have thought I-there am gone

‘I have thought about it.’ ‘I have been there.’

There are two broad approaches to perfective-auxiliary selection, syntactic and semantic. The syntactic account tries to exploit the fact that (non-reflexive) être-taking verbs are necessarily intransitive, as in (72a). W here these verbs are used transitively (non-reflexively), they necessarily take avoir, as in (72b):

(72) a. Je suis sorti. b. J’ai sorti l’argent.

I am gone.out I-have taken.out the-money

‘I went out.’ ‘I took the money out.’

Such accounts suggest that, while the subject of an avoir-taking transitive verb like dire ‘to say’ is merged in the same configuration as the subject of an avoir-taking intransitive verb like rire ‘to laugh’, the subject of an être-taking intransitive verb

like arriver is in fact merged in the configuration of an underlying direct object. In other words, avoir-taking intransitive verbs are unergative, while être-taking ones are unaccusative. However, under the approach to lexical thematic structure set out in §1.5, such an analysis is meaningless: in the kind of VP* structure illustrated in

§2.2.2, subjects and direct objects appear in the same kind of configuration (in a SpecèP position), and a VP* headed by a monadic verb has the same structure, irrespective of whether it takes avoir or être as perfective auxiliary. There’s no sense in which a thematic dependant can be a direct object underlyingly and become a subject on the surface. A dependant doesn’t ‘become’ a direct object until it leaves VP* and is marked with accusative case, and if a dependant does ‘become’ a direct object in this way, it remains a direct object. The sole argument of a verb like arriver ‘to arrive’ certainly doesn’t do this.

Quite independently of this theoretical problem, the analysis of perfective-auxiliary selection in terms of underlying configurations is ill suited to deal with the attested variation (Charaud 2000: 637): avoir-taking verbs sometimes take être, as in (73b), while être-taking verbs are used widely with avoir in the M aghreb (Queffélec 2000a: 786).

(73) a. J’ai été malade. b. %Je suis été malade. (Gadet 2003)

I-have been ill I am been ill

a, b: ‘I have been ill.’

It’s hard to believe that speakers vary in their underlying syntactic representation of a verb like être. Thus, it’s likely that factors other than underlying configuration are at play in perfective-auxiliary selection.

An alternative approach appeals to semantics rather than syntax (Sorace 2000).

The idea that, for example, what’s relevant is whether or not a change of state is expressed is offered some support by the contrasting behaviour of the copulas in (74):

(74) a. Il a été malade. b. Il est devenu malade.

he has been ill he is become ill

‘He was ill.’ ‘He became ill.’

The non-change-of-state copula être ‘to be’ selects avoir as its perfective auxiliary, while the change-of-state copula devenir ‘to become’ selects être. Standard reference grammars suggest a general tendency whereby être-taking verbs indicate motion or change of state, and that the subject of these verbs is therefore a Theme rather than an Agent. Recourse to the semantic notion of change of state can also shed light on some common patterns of both standard and non-standard usage.

Leeman-Bouix (1994: 90–1) uses those verbs mentioned above which, depending on semantic nuance, even in the standard language are compatible with both être and avoir to illuminate the underlying contrast between the two, and to explain why some speakers extend the use of être. The examples in (75) are both standard and unambiguous: (75a), with avoir, describes an activity, (75b), with être, the change of state resulting from the activity:

Sorace’s hierarchy is: change of location > change of state > continuation of pre-existing

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state > existence of state > uncontrolled process > controlled process (motional) > controlled process (non-motional) (2004: 256, ex (9)).

(75) a. Pierre a changé. b. Pierre est changé.

P. has changed P. is changed

a, b: ‘P. has changed.’

The same contrast is apparent in the examples in (76), although the correspondence between auxiliary selection and the semantic nuance is less clear cut:

(76) a. Emmanuel a disparu le 16 février 1996 à la gare SNCF de Rennes.

E. has disappeared the 16 February 1996 at the station SNCF of Rennes

‘E. went missing 16 February 1996 at Rennes railway station.’

b. Liu Yufeng est disparu depuis six ans.

L. Y. is disappeared since six years

‘L. Y. has been missing for six years.’

Similarly, while intransitive descendre appears in the list of être-taking verbs, it can take avoir when what’s relevant is the activity, rather than the change of state resulting from the activity. Leeman-Bouix suggests that it’s the inherent ambiguity of, for example, Elle est sortie between the activity ‘She went out’ and the resultant (change of) state ‘She’s gone out’ that underlies the non-standard contrasting use of the two auxiliaries, thus removing the ambiguity:

(77) a. %Elle a sorti. b. Elle est sortie.

she has left she is left

‘She went out.’ ‘She has gone out.’

Sorace (2000; 2004) proposes a semantically motivated hierarchical (that is, implicational) approach to auxiliary selection with generalised have selection at the top and be selection at the bottom, and cross-linguistic variation determining: (a) how far down have selection extends; (b) how far up be selection extends; and (c) the location and breadth of any intermediate zones where auxiliary selection is subject to variation.³²

The above discussion of perfective-auxiliary selection ignores the use of être with reflexive verbs. Compare (78a) with (78b), with a direct-object reflexive, and (79a) with (79b), with an indirect-object reflexive:

(78) a. Je l’ai lavé. b. Je me suis lavé.

I it-have washed I me be washed

‘I washed him.’ ‘I washed myself.’

(79) a. Elle vous a fait mal. b. Elle s’est fait mal.

she you has done bad she self-is done bad

‘She hurt you.’ ‘She hurt herself.’

If the semantic approach to perfective-auxiliary selection in terms of Sorace’s hierarchy is going to work, then we need to identify a relevant contrast between the

Have is found with reflexive verbs in the speech of children and also in some dialects, for

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example, Québécois.

reflexive and non-reflexive use of predicates like laver ‘to wash’ and faire mal ‘to hurt’. Given the hierarchical nature of Sorace’s approach, we would expect to find that reflexivity has the effect, in the standard language, of raising the verbal predicate sufficiently high up the hierarchy to trigger être selection. In those varieties in which reflexives retain the avoir auxiliary, as illustrated in (81) (cf. the³³ standard examples in (80)), the threshold for être selection is presumably higher.

(80) a. Je me suis appelé. b. Je me suis téléphoné.

I me am called I to.me am phoned

‘I called myself.’ ‘I phoned myself.’

(81) a. %Je m’ai appelé. b. %Je m’ai téléphoné.

I me-have called I to.me-have phoned

Under such an approach, the reason for the absence of variation the other way – for example, direct and indirect transitive non-reflexives never select être instead of standard avoir, as shown in (83) (cf. the standard examples in (82)) – would be that in no variety of French does the threshold fall sufficiently low:

(82) a. Je l’ai appelé. b. Je lui ai téléphoné.

I him-have called I to.him have phoned

‘I called him.’ ‘I phoned him.’

(83) a. *Je le suis appelé. b. *Je lui suis téléphoné.

I him am called I to.him am phoned