The different interpretations of the French adjective pareil or how a relational adjective becomes an anaphoric device

Abstract

"Pareil" is a relational adjective, which expresses a relation of identity between two or more entities. Unlike "même" and" différent", it does not give rise to referentially dependent interpretations. Nevertheless the arguments of the relation can be expressed in various ways, which allows us to distinguish three different uses of "pareil": (i) used with an overt item of comparison, taking the form of a PP introduced by the preposition "à"; (ii) an anaphorical use, in which one of the arguments of the relation is expressed in the preceding context, and (iii) an internal or reciprocal use, in which the different arguments are expressed by the plural NP "pareil" is predicated of. The aim of this contribution is to study the factors that bring about the latter two interpretations. It is shown that the anaphorical reading is the most frequent one and that it is the only one possible whenever "pareil" is used attributively preceding the noun. In these uses, "pareil" is very close to "tel": both adjectives establish what could be called a generic anaphora. The reciprocal interpretation is made possible by the presence of a quantifier, which focalises the part structure of the referent of the NP. This quantifying element can be a determiner, a floating quantifier, an adverbial or even a durative copular verb such as "rester"