While French does not display the kind of VP-ellipsis found in languages like English, it effects verbal anaphora by means of two constructions that have received relatively little attention in the literature. Both of these combine the generic ‘action verb’ faire ‘do’ with what appears to be a pronoun. The first one, which I call le-faire anaphora (LFA), uses the clitic le, whereas the second one, which I call faire-ça anaphora (FCA), brings into play the strong pronoun ça ‘it/that’. Taking such pronouns to be substitutive pro-forms devoid of inner structure cannot, however, explain why LFA, but not FCA, can appear in the standard of a comparative, a property that distinguishes English VP-ellipsis from VP-pro-forms like do it/that/so, which behave like FCA. On the other hand, LFA, unlike English VP-ellipsis, does not allow wh-extraction from a VP-internal position outside the realm of comparatives, which leads to a paradox left unresolved in the literature. In this article, I argue that LFA involves ellipsis of a whole vP phase. Specifically, I argue that faire in LFA, but not in FCA, is a (semi)auxiliary verb that takes a vP complement and bears an E-feature lexicalized by the clitic le. I show that this correctly predicts that A-movement out of the ellipsis site is possible and that A-bar movement of a degree wh-phrase out of vP in comparatives is made possible by the fact that French licenses Quantification at a Distance, a grammatical operation that allows degree quantifiers to escape vP before the next phasal head (C) is merged and triggers ellipsis. Other wh-quantifiers that do not benefit from the Quantification at a Distance option are then expected to not be able to escape vP prior to ellipsis, hence run-of-the-mill wh-extraction out of VP is correctly predicted to be incompatible with LFA. I then turn to what appears to be a related anaphoric phenomenon, which consists of the predicational copula être ‘be’ and the clitic le, which I call l’être anaphora (LEA), and show that it too is an instance of ellipsis in that it allows the full range of extraction phenomena out of the missing constituent introduced by the copula. I assume that in those cases in which the copula takes a small clause, it participates in an asymmetric structure where it lexicalizes Pred, a head that mediates between subject and predicate. In those cases in which the copula introduces a passivized VP, on the other hand, I assume that it lexicalizes v, an assumption in line with theories that posit multiple instantiations of predicate mediators (so-called ‘flavors of v’). In both cases, the copula in LEA heads a phase, bears an E-feature lexicalized by le, and is argued to license ellipsis of its phasal complement. Thus, elements are allowed to escape ellipsis by moving to the edge of the phase headed by the copula, and this correctly predicts that LEA permits a wider range of extractions out of the ellipsis site than LFA does.

中文翻译：

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法语谓语指代、比较级和省略号

虽然法语不显示在英语等语言中发现的那种 VP-ellipsis，但它通过两种在文献中受到相对较少关注的结构来影响口头照应。这两者都结合了通用的“动作动词”马戏团“做”似乎是代词。第一个，我称之为放任自流指代词 (LFA)，使用附加词乐，而第二个，我称之为公平交易会指代词 (FCA)，发挥强代词的作用ça'它/那个'。然而，将此类代词视为没有内部结构的替代代词不能解释为什么 LFA 而不是 FCA 可以出现在比较级的标准中，这是将英语 VP-省略号与 VP-代词区别开来的属性，例如这样做/那样/那样，其行为类似于 FCA。另一方面，LFA 与英语 VP-ellipsis 不同，不允许什么-从比较领域之外的副总裁内部职位中提取，这导致了文献中未解决的悖论。在本文中，我认为 LFA 涉及整体的省略号vP相。具体来说，我认为马戏团在 LFA 中，但在 FCA 中不是，是一个（半）助动词，它带有vP 补充并带有一个被附加词词汇化的 E 特征乐. 我表明这正确地预测了省略号位置外的 A 移动是可能的，并且 A 杆移动了一个度数什么-短语出v比较级中的 P 之所以成为可能，是因为法国许可了距离量化，这是一种允许程度量词逃逸的语法操作vP 在下一个相头 (C) 合并并触发省略号之前。其他什么- 没有从“距离量化”选项中受益的量词预计无法逃脱vP 在省略号之前，因此是普通的什么-VP 的提取被正确预测为与 LFA 不兼容。然后我转向似乎是相关的照应现象，它由谓词系词组成埃特尔'be' 和 clitic乐，我称之为l'êtreanaphora (LEA)，并表明它也是省略号的一个实例，因为它允许从 copula 引入的缺失成分中提取现象的全部范围。我假设在 copula 带小从句的那些情况下，它参与了一个非对称结构，在该结构中它使 Pred 词汇化，这是一个介于主语和谓语之间的中心词。另一方面，在 copula 引入被动化 VP 的情况下，我假设它词汇化v，一个假设符合假设谓词中介的多个实例化的理论（所谓的“风味”v'). 在这两种情况下，LEA 中的 copula 引导一个阶段，带有一个 E 特征，由乐, 并被认为许可其阶段补充的省略号。因此，允许元素通过移动到以 copula 为首的相的边缘来逃避省略号，这正确地预测 LEA 允许比 LFA 更广泛地从省略号位置提取。