Expressing the Same by the Different

The subjunctive vs the indicative in French

Igor Dreer | Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027215680 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027291905 | EUR 110.00 | USD 165.00

This volume offers an alternative, sign-oriented analysis of the distribution of the French Indicative and Subjunctive. It rejects both government and functions, attributed to both moods, and shows that the distribution of the Indicative and the Subjunctive is motivated by their invariant meanings. The volume illustrates the close interaction between the Indicative and the Subjunctive, as linguistic signs, and signs of other grammatical systems, contextually associated with the invariant meanings of both moods. Special consideration is given to the use of the Indicative and the Subjunctive in texts of different styles and genres.

This volume also deals with the diachronic disfavoring of the Subjunctive and especially of the Imperfect Subjunctive that occurred from Old French to Contemporary French. It is argued that this disfavoring was motivated by the narrowing of the invariant meaning of the Contemporary French Subjunctive. All hypotheses are supported by contextualized examples and frequency counts.

[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 59] 2007. xxx, 272 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.59

Table of Contents

Dedication | p. v

Acknowledgements | p. xi

List of tables | pp. xiii–xiv

List of figures | p. xv

Preface | pp. xvii–xxx

Part 1. The problem of French mood

1. Sentence-oriented approaches | pp. 3–42

2. Sign-oriented approaches | pp. 43–51

Part 2. Columbia School theory

3. The basic principles | pp. 55–74

4. Hypothesis | pp. 75–81

Part 3. "Micro-level" analysis

5. Occurrence System and the encoder's commitment | pp. 85–128

6. Occurrence System and subjective comment | pp. 129–145

7. Occurrence System and negation | pp. 147–164

Part 4. "Macro-level" analysis

8. "From sign to text" approach | pp. 167–179

9. "From text to sign" approach | pp. 181–196

Part 5. The subjunctive moods: Diachronic analysis

10. Previous explanations for the use of the Subjunctive forms and for their disfavoring | pp. 201–206

11. The analysis of the general disfavoring of the Subjunctive | pp. 207–215

12. The analysis of the disfavoring of the Imperfect Subjunctive | pp. 217–221

13. The Subjunctive moods in Old French: "Micro-level" analysis | pp. 223–229

14. The Subjunctive moods in Old French: "Macro-level" analysis | pp. 231–237

15. The Subjunctive moods in contemporary French: "Micro-level" analysis | pp. 239–247

16. The Subjunctive moods in contemporary French: "Macro-level" analysis | pp. 249–254

Concluding remarks | pp. 255–258

Name index | pp. 269–270

Subject index | pp. 271–272

Cited by (9)

Cited by nine other publications

Order by:

Eisenbruch, Miriam A.

2022. The subjunctive in Renaissance French. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 23:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Dreer, Igor, F. Neveu, B. Harmegnies, L. Hriba & S. Prévost

2018. L’application de la théorie de « phonologie comme comportement humain » à l’analyse de la distribution phonotactique des consonnes et des voyelles dans les mots monosyllabiques du français standard. SHS Web of Conferences 46 ► pp. 09002 ff.

Lamiroy, Béatrice & Anna Pineda

2017. Grammaticalization across Romance languages and the pace of language change. Lingvisticae Investigationes 40:2 ► pp. 304 ff.

Gosselin, Laurent

2016. Les modes expriment-ils des modalités ?. Lingvisticae Investigationes 39:1 ► pp. 143 ff.

Rihs, Alain

2016. Le subjonctif comme marqueur procédural. Syntaxe & Sémantique N° 17:1 ► pp. 57 ff.

Flaux, Nelly & Véronique Lagae

2014. Syntaxe et sémantique des marqueurs modaux : présentation. Langages N° 193:1 ► pp. 3 ff.

Dreer, Igor

2013. The Use of the Future and Conditional in High Medieval Literature. In Research on Old French: The State of the Art [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 88], ► pp. 221 ff.

Winters, Margaret E.

2013. Grammatical Meaning and the Old French Subjunctive. In Research on Old French: The State of the Art [Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 88], ► pp. 351 ff.

[no author supplied]

2015. Case in Russian [Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 70],

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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