Exclamative predicates and A' chains

In this paper, we would like to show that data as in (1) are cases of exclamative movement at S-Structure, within a non-clausal structure: (1) a. Etonnante, cette histoire! 'Astonishing this story!'b. Un génie, cet enfant!'A genius, this child!' Even though these constructions can be interpreted as copular sentences, we argue that these phrases are not clausal and, moreover, they do not correspond to a small clause structure. More generally, a small clause is viewed as a subject-predicate verbless construction where the invisible verb is construed as the copula. Within the construction in (1), however, there is no possible finite counterpart to refer to since the copula cannot surface, contrary to what is usually observed in embedded or adjoined small clauses: (2) a. *Etonnante, cette histoire est! 'Astonishing, this story is!' b. *Un génie, cet enfant est! 'A genius, this child is!' (3) a. Je considère [cet enfant intelligent)Je considère [que cet enfant est intelligent)'I consider that this child is intelligent' b. Une fois [Jean parti], ... Une fois [que Jean est parti), ... 'Once that Jean is gone ...' We therefore argue that the structures in (1) do not exhibit the status of a reduced proposition but rather represent a NP type of structure, as also suggested by Milner (1982:267:fn2). This an417sis is thus in line with the conclusions of Grimshaw (1979) who has argued that exclamatives (E type structures) correspond to more than one syntactic category, and that NP and S' each correspond to more than one semantic type. More specifically, we defend the general idea that these structures in (1) lack a Tense operator and correspond to a moment in discourse rather than a moment in time