Catherine Léger, PhD (U. du Québec à Montréal)
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ContactTel. : (250) 721-7369 Email : cleger@uvic.ca Office : Clearihue C250 |
Her research focuses on the syntax and the semantics of clausal complementation in French, that is, complements that contain at least a verb (Je pense que Marie est arrivée; Je suis contente que Marie arrive; Je suis prête à partir), including the syntactic structure of the distinct types of complements, the proper analysis of infinitival complements which typically have peculiar properties, obviation (the impossibility of coreference between the subject of the main clause and the subject of the embedded clause), the indicative/subjunctive contrast (the mood opposition), presupposed complements (complements that denote events that are considered to have occurred or are occurring), complementizers (subordinate conjunctions) and other elements introducing complements (que, à, and de), and complements of aspectual verbs (commencer, continuer, finir). Further interests include French varieties in North America, in particular her native dialect, that is,"chiac", a long-stigmatized variety of Acadian French spoken in New Brunswick that emerged from intense contact with English.
Publications - Articles
“Sentential complementation of adjectives in French. In Adjectives. Formal Analyses in Syntax and Semantics. Eds. Patricia Cabredo-Hofherr & Ora Matushansky. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2010. 265–306.
“The acquisition of two types of factive complements”. In Language Acquisition and Development: Proceedings of GALA 2007. Eds. Anna Gavarró & M. João Freitas. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. 337–346.
“La complémentation phrastique des adjectifs en français”. In Proceedings of the 2003 Annual Conference of the Canadian Linguistic Association. Eds. Sophie Burelle & Stanca Somesfalean. 2003. 133–144.
“The use of tenses in French-speaking children’s narratives”. In The Proceedings of the Thirtieth Stanford Child Language Research Forum (April 9–11, 1999). Ed. Eve V. Clark. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), 2000. 105–112.
Publications - Conference Papers
“Selectional patterns of introducing elements with French and Italian aspectualizers: How diachronic data accounts for crosslinguistic synchronic differences” (with Cinzia Russi). MLA Discussion Group in Comparative Romance Linguistics, MLA Annual Convention, Los Angeles, CA, January 6–9, 2011 (forthcoming).
“La complémentation des adjectifs en français”. ComplementationS (organized by La Plateforme internationale de recherche Gramm-R, la Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, la Universidade de Vigo and l’Université libre de Bruxelle), la Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela (Spain), October 20–23, 2010 (forthcoming).
“The selection and distribution of à and de in French” (with Cinzia Russi). Syntax in Cognitive Grammar, Wyzsza Szkola Lingwistyczna, Czestochowa (Poland), April 9–11, 2010 (presentation on April 11, 2010).
“The selection and distribution of à and de in French with commencer” (with Cinzia Russi). Faculty and Graduate Student Colloquium, Department of French and Italian, The University of Texas at Austin, April 1, 2010.
“Adjuncts that denote abstract objects: the case of adverbial phrases with two types of adjectives”. Reference to Abstract Objects in Natural Language, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain), March 28–29, 2008 (presentation on March 29, 2008).
“Knowing, thinking, seeing and being happy: The acquisition of factive and nonfactive predicates”. Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition 2007 (GALA 2007), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona (Spain), September 6–8, 2007 (presentation on September 6, 2007).
“Understanding of factivity under negation: an asymmetry between two types of factive predicates”. Boston University Conference on Language Development 31, Boston University, Boston, MA, November 3–5, 2006 (presentation on November 4, 2006).
“Sentential complements of adjectives in French”. Journée d’études sur l’analyse formelle d’adjectifs/Workshop on the Formal Analysis of Adjectives (organized by the Joint Research Unit 7023 of the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Université Paris 8 (Vincennes-Saint-Denis), Université de Paris 6 (Pierre-et-Marie-Curie), Paris (France), September 28, 2005.
“Les propriétés syntaxiques et sémantiques des adjectifs de qualités morales”. 72nd Annual Meeting of the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS), Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), Montréal, May 10–14, 2004 (presentation on May 10, 2004).
“Une analyse sémantique de la complémentation des adjectifs en français”. Canadian Linguistic Association Annual Conference, Dalhousie University, Halifax, June 1–4, 2003 (presentation on June 3, 2003).
“L’utilisation des temps de verbe dans les narrations écrites et orales d’enfants francophones de la première à la cinquième année scolaire”. Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke (Quebec), June 4–6, 1999 (presentation on June 5, 1999).
“Tense and aspect in French-speaking children’s written and oral narratives”. Thirtieth Stanford Child Language Research Forum, Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford University, Stanford, CA, April 9–11, 1999 (presentation on April 10, 1999).
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