Aspectual adverbs and stylistic inversion in temporals

The subject of this paper is French stylistic inversion in temporal subordinates. In line with Cinque (1999), it is shown that, while non-inverted verbs surface in T°, inverted verbs in temporals occupy the head position of a functional projection lower than T°, with the aspectual adverbs soudain, tout à coup, brusquement and peu à peu in the specifier position. This is taken as evidence in favor of the claim that Kayne and Pollock’s (2001) phrasal movement analysis of stylistic inversion cannot be extended to stylistic inversion in temporal subordinates.