blame · blâmer

Hierarchy

Same inventory as English blame and Spanish culpar. Not five-place. Not four sisters of one V. Surface count can name the committee, the weather, the delay, and an airline — but the lexicon does not list four co-arguments of √ASCRIBE_FAULT / √BLÂM-.

No MeasureP. There is no verbal Amount+Denomination object. Degrees that sneak in (combien de faute, partitives on Charge) live on the Abney spine of a light noun or of Charge — Left Branch Condition for sell / pay / charge_FEE does not apply as a verbal diagnostic here. French en can resume a measured Charge quantity (n'en ont-ils pas blâmé le comité ?) — that is DP-internal quantity resumption, not a verbal MeasureP.

What Group B changes is Case, clitics, and light-noun packaging. What it does not change is the inventory. Weather still satisfies Target and fails Judge. Cause-true is still not entailed. Target and Charge still do not invert at Transfer cost.

French frames · Case clothes

Romance packages blame without a productive DOC. Target is a direct object (ACC). Charge is pour. Clitics and se demotion are height diagnostics — as in the Transfer Romance supplement — but the class contrast remains: Transfer Themes invert under Neg; blame Target and Charge do not.

1. ✓ Le comité a blâmé le mauvais temps pour le retard. canonical · ACC Target · pour-Charge
2. ✓ N'ont-ils pas blâmé le mauvais temps pour le retard ? polar NegQ baseline (§9.1)
3. ✓ N'ont-ils pas jeté la faute sur le mauvais temps ? light noun · on-geometry
4. ✓ Attribuer la faute à Target Assign_Blame Group B light-noun twin
5. ✓ Ne l'ont-ils pas blâmé pour le retard ? l' = Target (temps)
6. ✓ Ne la lui ont-ils pas jetée ? la = faute (light noun)
7. ✓ N'en ont-ils pas blâmé le comité ? en = measured Charge quantity
8. ✓ N'a-t-on pas blâmé le mauvais temps pour le retard ? on / impersonal · Voice
9. ✓ N'ont-ils pas fait blâmer le comité pour le retard ? faire wrap · outer CAUSE_G · Type A
10. ?? N'ont-ils pas blâmé pour le retard le mauvais temps ? marked invert · focus shift, not free Transfer invert
11. ?? Ne lui ont-ils pas blâmé le retard ? non-productive DOC-looking · marked
12. * Le mauvais temps ne l'a-t-il pas blâmé pour le retard ? weather as Judge
13. * N'ont-ils pas fait blâmer le mauvais temps à la compagnie ? weather still not inner Judge under faire

A bare Non on the canonical NegQ most readily challenges the ascription event or the ACC Target. Challenging the Charge wants that content already under discussion. Negation does not grow a double-object and does not create a fourth Case. en resumes measured Charge quantity, not a weather-Judge and not a clausal Charge.

WH / NegQ diagnostics · no MeasureP LBC

Unlike sell / pay_GIVE / charge_FEE / bet, blame has no verbal MeasureP. There is therefore no Left-Branch Condition of the Amount-from-Denomination type on √BLÂM-. Degrees that appear are DP-internal on Charge or on the light noun faute. French en is quantity resumption on that DP spine — not evidence of a verbal MeasureP host.

1. ✓ Qui n'ont-ils pas blâmé pour le retard ? WH = Target
2. ✓ Pour quoi n'ont-ils pas blâmé le mauvais temps ? WH = Charge
3. ✓ Qui n'a pas blâmé le mauvais temps pour le retard ? WH = Judge
4. ✓ Combien de faute ne lui ont-ils pas jetée ? degree on light noun · Abney-side
5. ✓ N'en ont-ils pas blâmé le comité ? en = measured Charge quantity
6. * Combien n'ont-ils pas blâmé de retard le mauvais temps ? no verbal MeasureP LBC host
7. * Qui n'a pas blâmé le mauvais temps à la compagnie ? weather cannot be Judge under WH either

Superiority ranks Judge > Target > Charge. It does not rank Charge against a silent Purpose, Price, or Theme₂. Cheap NegQ association tracks the Case object of the chosen cloth: Target under single-verb blâmer; light noun under jeter / attribuer la faute.

Geometry · blâmer ≠ attribuer_ATT ≠ credit_MERIT ≠ Transfer

In Le comité a blâmé le mauvais temps pour le retard, the committee holds that the weather is responsible for the delay. That is ascription, not HAVE of goods and not SWAP of Themes. Weather is Target. The delay is Charge. HOLD is an attitude; RESPONSIBLE(Target, Charge) is content, not a presupposed fact.

• ≠ English DOC / Transfer invert. There is no productive *blâmer Target Charge DOC. Marked ??Ne lui ont-ils pas blâmé le retard ? is flagged non-productive. Low invert ??N'ont-ils pas blâmé pour le retard le mauvais temps ? is focus shift, not Transfer-level free Theme₁ ↔ Theme₂.
• ≠ attribute_ATT polarity merge. Shared family (ascribe content to Target) and shared Voice filter; blame writes FAULT polarity. French attribuer can host light-noun FAULT (attribuer la faute à) or other Charges — keep the Assign_Blame split: single-verb blâmer … pour vs light-noun attribuer / jeter la faute à|sur.
• ≠ credit_MERIT. Opposite polarity of merit. French merit packaging live at credit_MERIT · attribuer. No ledger MeasureP here.
• ≠ charge_ACCUSE legal overlay. Fault content can overlap in discourse; legal / speech-act overlays of accuse are not filed on this page.
• Missing defaults. Cause-true and settlement are not entailed. N'ont-ils pas blâmé le mauvais temps pour le retard ? is compatible with the weather not in fact causing the delay.

English twin pointer: Target for Charge / Charge on Target. Spanish twin: culpar a … de / light-noun echar la culpa a. Weather OK as Target, *not* as Judge. French spells the for-frame as blâmer … pour; the on-geometry surfaces as light-noun attribuer / jeter la faute à|sur, not as a productive Charge-ACC flip of the English on-frame type.

Shells, ApplP, and Case

VoiceP  [ JudgeNOM
  vP / √ASCRIBE_FAULT
    ACC               Target   (blâmer-frame)
    PP_pour           Charge   (pour + NP / clause)
]

Light-noun on-geometry:
VoiceP  [ Judge
  vP / √ATTRIBUER·JETER
    ACC               la fauteN   (Charge-type / FAULT)
    PP_à|sur          Target ]

en quantity (measured Charge):
  enCL resumes QP part of Charge — Abney-side, not a fourth Case

French blâmer never assigns four structural Cases. Target is ACC; Charge is inside pour. No low Appl_HAVE. No low Appl_SWAP. No Appl_TASK. No MeasureP. High Appl / Affectee is extra when present and is not a listed argument of √ASCRIBE_FAULT.

Clitic height: l' / le resumes Target under single-verb blâmer; la resumes the light noun under jeter la faute; en resumes measured Charge quantity (not a clause, not a weather-Judge). Inanimate Target clitics are fine. Inanimate subject as Judge is not generated — that is the Voice filter, not a Case accident.

Outer CAUSE_G (faire blâmer) wraps Voice — Type A. The causee, not the weather, is the Judge. *N'ont-ils pas fait blâmer le mauvais temps à la compagnie ? keeps the inner filter. Type A climbing unions Voice domains; Charge stays a Reason-PP and never climbs as a dative.

Omission does not demote Charge to a pure adjunct. Selected P-layers are optional in the numeration; they are still arguments when present. The diagnostic is participanthood under Case, binding, and WH — not omitability.

Underivables (French)

1. * Le mauvais temps ne l'a-t-il pas blâmé pour le retard ? weather / inanimate as Judge
2. * N'ont-ils pas fait blâmer le mauvais temps à la compagnie ? faire wrap does not wash Voice filter
3. * N'ont-ils pas blâmé la compagnie le retard ? no productive DOC
4. * Combien n'ont-ils pas blâmé de retard le mauvais temps ? no verbal MeasureP LBC
5. * N'ont-ils pas blâmé le mauvais temps de le retard ? de ≠ French Charge letter (Spanish cloth)
6. * N'ont-ils pas blâmé le mauvais temps pour la nouvelle technologie ? pour Purpose coercion ≠ Charge (odd unless coerced)
7. * N'ont-ils pas échangé le mauvais temps contre le retard ? SWAP cloth ≠ ascribe-fault
8. ?? N'ont-ils pas blâmé pour le retard le mauvais temps ? not Transfer-level free invert
9. ?? Ne lui ont-ils pas blâmé le retard ? marked DOC-looking · non-productive

Group B packaging · this tick French only

Group B (Spanish, French, Italian) is the Romance Case-cloth contrast set already used for NegQ on blame (§9). Same hierarchy as English; different host of Charge (de / pour / di) and light-noun on-geometry. Clitics resume Target; se/si/on demotion targets Voice; French en / Italian ne resume measured Charge quantity. Spanish culpar, English blame, and Italian incolpare are live at blame-es.html, blame.html, and blame-it.html. Group C (HU Focus, PL GEN-neg, BG WH clusters) and Group A / D packaging stay predicted or scout — not elicited here.

Open items

• Italian twin. Live at blame-it.html (di-Charge; light-noun colpa; ne quantity).
• English / Spanish / Italian twins. blame.html, blame-es.html, and blame-it.html are sprint-depth. Keep pages split by Case cloth (for/on · de · pour · di).
• attribuer without light noun. Index 2 pairs blâmer, attribuer. Bare attribuer Charge à Target (no faute) overlaps attribute_ATT / assign_ASCRIBE. Keep split; do not collapse on this page.
• Marked DOC-looking and invert. ??Ne lui ont-ils pas blâmé le retard ? and ??N'ont-ils pas blâmé pour le retard le mauvais temps ? need controlled elicitation for speaker-variable judgments — flagged, not closed.
• en vs clausal Charge. Corpus: en resumes quantity when Charge is measured, not when Charge is a clause. Boundary cases flagged as open.
• Group C / A packaging. Hungarian Focus+nem, Polish GEN-neg predictions, Japanese sei, Mandarin 把 remain scout / predicted. No fake elicitation.

Corpus filenames

Primary extract for this micro-entry is Group B Romance NegQ on blame (§9), French map. Geometry is shared with the English lexical entry. Light-noun contrast from Assign_Blame_Comparison. Chat packaging: Tritransitive chats 13 (assign vs blame Case / NegQ) and 22 (blame in negative questions · no fourth theta).