sell · vendre

Hierarchy

Same inventory as English sell. Not five-place. Not four sisters of one V. Surface count can name Pat, Chris, a lawnmower, and a price, but the lexicon does not list four co-arguments of √SELL / √VEND-.

$20 = vingt dollars = one MeasureP. Orthography is not extra arity. There is no sixth argument “currency symbol.” See English sell · Hierarchy for the shared arithmetic.

What Group B changes is Case, clitics, and which letter does two jobs. What it does not change is the inventory. Twenty is still not dollars. Dollars is still not a sister of vendre. Payment-settled is still implicated, not e2. HAVE of the goods is still e2.

French frames · Case clothes

No English DOC / to-frame ACC flip. Theme stays ACC. Recipient is DAT (lui doubling à-PP). Price stays inside pour. Cheapness under Neg therefore tracks the goods, not an applied ACC Recipient. There is no Chris was sold a lawnmower twin. Participle agreement (vendue) tracks ACC Theme, not Price.

1. ✓ Pat a vendu une tondeuse à Chris.
2. ✓ Pat a vendu une tondeuse à Chris pour vingt dollars.
3. ✓ Pat a vendu une tondeuse pour vingt dollars. Recipient omitted; pour-PP may reread as Theme₂ of exchange — still one MeasureP
4. ✓ Pat a vendu une tondeuse. Recipient and Price independently omissible
5. ✓ Pat n’a-t-il pas vendu une tondeuse à Chris pour vingt dollars ? canonical NegQ
6. ✓ Ne lui a-t-il pas vendu une tondeuse pour vingt dollars ? lui = Recipient
7. ✓ Ne lui en a-t-il pas vendu une pour vingt dollars ? en = quantified Theme QP
8. ✓ La tondeuse ne lui a-t-elle pas été vendue pour vingt dollars ? passive promotes Theme; agreement tracks ACC
9. * Chris n’a-t-il pas été vendu une tondeuse pour vingt dollars ? no DOC-passive twin
10. * Ne lui a-t-il pas vendu vingt dollars une tondeuse ? DAT / ACC cannot absorb Price as object

A bare Non on the canonical NegQ most readily challenges the event or the goods. Challenging the twenty wants the Price QP already under discussion. That is the opposite of payer, where the money is ACC and is cheap.

MeasureP WH diagnostics

WH forces Amount ≠ Denomination inside one Case object of pour. Verbal WH sees the MeasureP, not unit and degree as two objects of vendre. Same MeasureP pattern as English sell, Spanish vender, and deduct. LBC survives Neg. en resumes one QP (goods); it does not resume dollars minus vingt.

1. ✓ Pour combien de dollars ne lui a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse ?
2. ✓ Pour vingt de quoi ne lui a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse ?
3. ✓ En quelle monnaie ne lui a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse pour vingt ?
4. ✓ Ne lui en a-t-il pas vendu deux pour vingt dollars ? en = goods QP
5. * Pour quoi vingt ne lui a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse ? LBC / sortal mismatch (Price remnant)
6. * Combien ne lui a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse dollars ? stranded unit after vendre
7. * Ne lui en a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse pour vingt ? en ≠ Price unit
8. * Il en a vendu la tondeuse pour vingt. en cannot resume dollars minus vingt

Two constraints conspire on the stars: Left Branch Condition (Amount inside MeasureP; French cannot extract the degree and leave the unit stranded under pour), and sortal mismatch under bare quoi (quoi wants an N or whole DP; vingt is a numeral, not a denomination). Combien de dollars pied-pipes. Rescues are pour vingt de quoi and en quelle monnaie — the Group B spelling of English twenty of what / in what currency. The rescue does not make dollars a sister of vendu.

Geometry · vendre ≠ échanger ≠ payer

In Pat a vendu une tondeuse à Chris, Chris comes to HAVE the lawnmower. That is give-geometry. DAT Recipient is the spell-out of low Appl_HAVE — the HAVE diagnostic that SWAP lacks.

• ≠ échanger / swap. Chris is Recipient HAVE-goods, not Theme₂. échanger inverts two Themes under Neg; vendre does not invert goods and money. *Ne lui a-t-il pas vendu 8 400 USDT à Kim pour 0,2 BTC ? is only good if the goods really are the USDT.
• ≠ payer / pay_GIVE. Cloth mismatch under one operator: Pat n’a-t-il pas payé vingt dollars à Chris pour une tondeuse ? questions ACC money; Pour combien de dollars ne lui a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse ? questions a Price PP. Shared pour on the leftover DP is packaging. The clitic and participle give the heads away: la / vendue track the mower on vendre; the money is ACC on payer.
• Payment-true is implicated, not entailed — the missing default of vendre. Goods-HAVE is e2 of vendre and the missing default of payer.

When Recipient is dropped (Pat a vendu une tondeuse pour vingt dollars), the pour-PP can be reread as incoming Incremental Theme of an exchange. That rereading changes the Appl head (HAVE vs SWAP); it does not split vingt from dollars or add a verbal sister for the unit.

Shells, ApplP, and Case

VoiceP  [ Pat
  vP / initP
    ApplP_LOW  [ ChrisDAT   [ Appl_HAVE
      VP  [ √VEND-   [ Theme  une tondeuseACC ] ] ] ]
    PP_pour  [ pour  [ MeasureP  [ Amount vingt ] [ N dollars ] ] ] ]

French vendre never assigns four structural Cases. Theme is ACC; Recipient is DAT; Price is inside P. The English DOC applied-object slot has no twin — that is why *Chris n’a-t-il pas été vendu une tondeuse ? stays bad and why cheapness under Neg tracks the goods. Participle agreement (vendue) tracks that ACC.

Amount is not an Incremental Theme of sell on the give-reading. The lawnmower is. Twenty dollars can measure the sale as a scale without being the object that is incrementally transferred. On a SWAP rereading, the MeasureP becomes the incoming Incremental Theme — still one Theme, still internally Amount + Unit.

Optional high Appl DAT (ethical / affectee) is a different dative from Recipient. Volume 5 splits three datives: Recipient of e_HAVE, high Affectee of the event, FI causee of outer CAUSE. NegQ does not turn the Affectee into a fourth argument of √VEND-. Type A faire climbing unions Voice domains; lui under faire vendre is Causee or Recipient until à Chris is written; Price stays outside the DAT cluster and never climbs as a dative. Purpose pour + INF never climbs either.

Omission does not demote Price to a pure adjunct. High and 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. * Chris n’a-t-il pas été vendu une tondeuse ? no DOC-passive twin
2. * Ne lui a-t-il pas vendu vingt dollars une tondeuse ? Price ≠ DAT / ACC object
3. * Pour quoi vingt ne lui a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse ? Amount ≠ denomination N under pour
4. * Combien ne lui a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse dollars ? LBC stranded unit
5. * Il en a vendu la tondeuse pour vingt. en ≠ Price unit remnant
6. * Ne lui a-t-il pas vendu 8 400 USDT à Kim pour 0,2 BTC ? no SWAP inversion (unless goods really are USDT)
7. * N’y a-t-il pas vendu la tondeuse vingt dollars ? y ≠ Price

Group B packaging · this tick French only

Group B (Spanish, French, Italian) is the Romance Case-cloth contrast set already used for NegQ on sell. Same hierarchy as English; different host of Amount+Denomination and cloth of Recipient (DAT / à-PP, not DOC ACC). French’s distinctive Group B fact vs Spanish: pour overloads Price and Purpose; Spanish splits them as por / para. This tick is French only. Italian vendere shares the DOCX and may be briefly pointed; full sense×language page for Italian is a later queue tick. Spanish Group B is at sell-es.html; Group A Japanese at sell-ja.html; Mandarin at sell-zh.html; Navajo stays deferred.

Open items

• Italian micro-entry. Same Group B geometry; per overload Purpose vs Price by complement type. Deferred — do not invent depth this tick.
• Dual-denomination prices (pour 8 400 USDT with goods 0,2 BTC). Still one MeasureP with a pair-name unit (LP-token moral), not two Themes / a sixth slot. Same open as English / Spanish.
• Ethical DAT vs Recipient under lui. Ambiguity is the Group B risk once FI faire vendre wraps; Volume 5 already splits three datives. Needs controlled elicitation, not invented judgments.
• Sell versus coûter / charge_FEE. Circumstance subjects and fee geometry need their own grid; do not reuse this frame. Weather still cannot sell. se demotes Voice; it does not promote Price or Recipient to subject of a DOC twin.
• Group A tightness / Navajo. Japanese at sell-ja.html; Mandarin at sell-zh.html; NV scout / predicted, not elicited here.

Corpus filenames

Primary extract for this micro-entry is Group B Romance NegQ on sell (§3.2 French frames, §6 LBC, §7 pour overload, §11 faire DAT split). Geometry is shared with the English lexical entry and the Spanish micro-entry. Chat packaging summary: Tritransitive NegQ Turn 3. Text extract used this tick under /tmp/sell-fr-extracts/.