On the comparative analysis of French (ne) ... que exceptives

This article takes a close look at recent proposals that French (ne) ... que exceptives are hidden comparatives involving two silent elements: a covert n-word and a phonologically unrealized autre 'other' introducing a partially elided comparative clausal standard headed by que 'than'. I show that assuming the constant presence of an n-word in the exceptive construction allows us to provide inter alia a scopal treatment of the fact that (ne) ... que exceptives in modal contexts are systematically ambiguous between an exclusive reading and a minimal sufficiency reading. As regards the comparative analysis of exceptives, I demonstrate that while the locality of association problem raised by (Homer. 2015. Ne ... que and its challenges. In Ulrike Steindl, Thomas Borer, Huilin Fang, Alfredo García Pardo, Peter Guekguezian, Brian Hsu, Charlie O'Hara & Iris Chuoying Ouyang (eds.), Proceedings of the 32nd West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, 111-120. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.) can be resolved by assuming that in French, the standard of comparatives can be clausal or just nominal, the fact that (ne) ... que displays a lexically-encoded, conventionalized meaning dependency on focus that is absent from its alleged comparative maximal phonological realization casts some serious doubt on the viability of the comparative analysis of French exceptives. Finally, I examine a number of contexts in which the n-word component of (ne) ... que must be overt and argue that this constraint follows from the Intonational Phrase Edge Generalization.