ABSTRACT
Inversion, or 1 to 3 Retreat, has been argued to occur in a number of diverse languages including Georgian (Harris, 1981), Choctaw (Davies, 1986), Albanian (Hubbard, 1982), Italian, Japanese, and Quechua (Perlmutter, 1984). Evidence for Inversion in French comes from Postal's 1989 study1 of causative constructions with complements containing verbs such as connaitre "know" and voir "see." Postal argues at length that these causative constructions involve Inversion in the complement. In passing, Postal claims that Inversion also occurs in non-Clause Union contexts with verbs such as pamitre "seem," sembler "seem," Mnkficier, profiter "benefit someone," (re)venir "come (back)," falloir "need, be necessary" and the colloquial phrase ca me connait "I know it well."
