Reflexive Marking in the History of French
Author
While French reflexive clitics have been widely studied, other forms of expressing co-reference within the clause have not received much attention. This monograph offers a diachronic study of the wider system of clause-mate co-reference in French, including the stressed pronouns, their suffixed form {soi/lui/elle}-même, and also the intensifier use of the latter. Its empirical backbone is a corpus analysis of the gradual replacement of stressed reflexive soi with the personal pronoun lui/elle from Old to Modern French. Apart from offering insights into the history of the language, this is important for current issues in theoretical linguistics, in particular binding, specificity, and the interaction of grammar and discourse. Within a cognitive-semantic framework, a number of analyses will help elucidate some long-standing puzzles in the study of French reflexives, while contributing to the wider theory of reflexivity and related issues. This book is of interest to the fields of French linguistics, semantics, discourse studies, and historical linguistics.
[Studies in Language Companion Series, 127] 2012. x, 225 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Preface | pp. ix–x
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Chapter 1. Introduction: Diachronic change in anaphoric systems | pp. 1–16
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Chapter 2. Anaphora in discourse vs. in grammar | pp. 17–76
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Chapter 3. From reflexive to personal pronoun: The expression of clause-mate coreference in French | pp. 77–132
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Chapter 4. Simple vs. reinforced reflexives | pp. 133–160
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Chapter 5. Intensifiers in French | pp. 161–176
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Chapter 6. From mention to reference: Explaining language change | pp. 177–204
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Chapter 7. Concluding remarks | pp. 205–208
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Appendix | pp. 217–224
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Index | pp. 225–226
“This monograph by a rising star of grammaticalization studies is a significant contribution to the understanding of the relations between grammar and pragmatics. Providing a wealth of data from the historical to the contemporary, from the literary to the conversational, and taking great care to situate itself with respect to both formal and functional perspectives, the work offers an elegant approach to complex facts and debates. It will no doubt reach the large audience of researchers concerned with the problem of language change and its causes.”
Pierre Larrivée, Université de Caen Basse-Normandie
“This contribution to diachronic research demonstrates the importance of the dynamics of language use, by which a marked form over time becomes the unmarked option. Presenting an impressive range of contemporary and historical data, the study makes a very strong case for the significance of pragmatics in grammar change.”
Richard P. Ingham, Birmingham City University
“The reader will find […] a fascinating, corpus-based study illustrating how soi and soi-même have gradually been replaced by the personal pronouns […]. Waltereit explains why the change from soi to lui occurred, arguing for a case of secondary grammaticalization (generalization of an already grammatical form), which he aptly relates to the evolution of predicate negation in French. […] [T]his corpus-based study of French is a significant contribution to historical linguistics.”
Peter A. Machonis, in The French Review 87 (2014), 186-187
“The volume, which comes complete with a brief concluding chapter largely summarising the results, a bibliography, an appendix with tables detailing statistics of anaphoric soi/lui in individual contexts, and a brief index, offers a focused and often penetrating study of an intricate area of French syntax. The author is to be thanked for a valuable contribution to the field.”
Rodney Sampson, University of Bristol, in Journal of French Language Studies 24(2): 315-316, 2014
Cited by
Cited by 5 other publications
Carlier, Anne
Inglese, Guglielmo & Anne C. Wolfsgruber
ISAMBERT, PAUL
Janic, Katarzyna
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 april 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.
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CF/2ADF: Linguistics/French
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General