On inversions and the interpretation of subjects in French

In this paper we discuss the interaction between postverbal subjects in French and interpretations of (in)definite DPs, including relevant pragmatic properties generally stated in terms of topic and focus. We show that postverbal subjects are not homogeneous, neither from the perspective of theories that explain differences among DPs in terms of (in)definiteness (distinctions between 'high' and 'low' readings) nor from the perspective of theories that distinguish topic-oriented constructions from focalisation. We argue that mapping theories should be kept as 'clean' as possible, so that they may, shed light on the position of the subject DP, i.e. the syntax of inverted structures. We show that interpretative and pragmatic variation in combination with a simple mapping theory argues in favor of a diversity of syntactic (remnant) movements somewhat richer than has been standardly assigned for French (and somewhat different too). We propose a (partial) hierarchy of functional projections Wh <Topic <Generic <Focus <Existential with three types of remnant movement in embedded clauses and a fourth one in root wh-questions.