Preposition omission in French interrogative sluices: empirical findings and theoretical implications

Many non-P(reposition) stranding languages have been shown to allow P-omission under sluicing (Sag & Nykiel 2011; Nykiel 2013a; Molimpakis 2019), thus challenging Merchant’s (2001) generalization, which derives P-omission in sluices from P-stranding. French is still an open issue: while Merchant (2001) claims it does not allow P-omission, Rodrigues et al. (2009) provide an example, with a cleft-based derivation. In two experimental studies we show that P-omission in French sluices is acceptable and is sensitive to the remnant type, with both à ‘to’ and de ‘of’. Through the analysis of a large (written) corpus, we also show that P-omission in French sluices is the preferred option, as in English (Nykiel 2017), and identify the factors favoring it. Our findings confirm the role of cognitive and information-based cues in P-omission under sluicing (Nykiel & Hawkins 2020) and suggest a non-deletion fragment-based analysis (Ginzburg & Sag 2000; Sag & Nykiel 2011).