Emmanuelle Labeau | Aston University (original) (raw)

Books by Emmanuelle Labeau

Invited special Issue of Syntaxe et Sémantique.

This volume on TAME systems (Tense-aspect-mood-evidentiality) stems from the 10th Chronos confere... more This volume on TAME systems (Tense-aspect-mood-evidentiality) stems from the 10th Chronos conference that took place in Aston University (Birmingham, UK) on 18th-20th April 2011. The papers collated here are therefore a chosen selection from a stringent peer-review process. They also witness to the width and breadth of the interests pursued within the Chronos community. Besides the traditional Western European languages, this volume explores languages from Eastern Europe (Greek, Romanian, Russian) and much further afield such as Brazilian Portuguese, Korean or Mandarin Chinese. Little known languages from the Amazonian forest (Amondawa, Baure) or the Andes (Aymara) also come under scrutiny.

The present book focuses on evolution in the Romance verbal systems. In the wake of Bybee’s and D... more The present book focuses on evolution in the Romance verbal systems. In the wake of Bybee’s and Dahl’s studies, it advocates the benefits of adopting a cross-linguistic and diachronic approach to the study of linguistic phenomena. Within the scope of the Romance family, similar cross-linguistic evolution paths are explored, as related languages at different stages of grammaticalisation may shed light on each other’s developments. A diachronic dimension also proves desirable for several reasons. First, a diachronic approach significantly enhances the explanatory power of linguistic theory by showing how a specific form came to convey a certain function. Second, change is better revealed in diachronic movement than in static synchrony. Third, meaning constantly evolves and a one-off probe will be less revealing than a sustained study through time. Finally and most importantly, similarities across languages appear more obviously in diachrony. All the chapters of this volume participate in their own way to that crosslinguistic and diachronic approach and help make it an original, focused contribution that covers all main Romance languages.

Tense, aspect and mood have attracted much attention in the areas of both first and second langua... more Tense, aspect and mood have attracted much attention in the areas of both first and second language acquisition, but scholars in the two disciplines often fail to learn from each other. Western European languages have also been the focus of most studies, but there would be lessons to learn from less studied languages.
This volume offers new insights on tense, aspect and mood by bringing together the findings of first and second language acquisition, and comparing child and adult, monolingual and multilingual learning processes that are approached from various theoretical points of view. In addition, it spans over a wide range of less studied languages (Bulgarian, Hebrew, Korean, Russian), and Western European languages are studied from new angles.

The Aspect Hypothesis (AH) claims that the association of any verb category (lexical aspect) with... more The Aspect Hypothesis (AH) claims that the association of any verb category (lexical aspect) with any grammatical aspect (perfective or imperfective) constitutes the endpoint of acquisition.
The present book evaluates the explanatory power of the Aspect Hypothesis for the acquisition of French past tenses, which constitutes a serious stumbling block for foreign learners, even at the highest levels of proficiency. The present research applies the Aspect Hypothesis to the production of 61 Anglophone 'advanced learners' in a tutored environment. In so doing, it tests concurrent explanations, including the influence of the input, the influence of chunking, and the hypothesis of cyclic development. It discusses the cotextual and contextual factors that still provoke «non-native glitches» at the final stage of the Aspect Hypothesis.
The book shows that the AH fails to account for the complex phenomenon of past tense development, as it adopts a local and linear approach.

This volume originates from a workshop entitled 'Revisiting advanced varieties in L2 learning' or... more This volume originates from a workshop entitled 'Revisiting advanced varieties in L2 learning' organized by the editors at Aston University (Birmingham, UK) in June 2006. It consists of a peer-reviewed selection of the best contributions.
Many different approaches have been used in the study of advanced learners and their characteristics. Specific areas of language have repeatedly been found to remain problematic even at advanced levels, and much empirical research has been carried out. In particular, areas of grammar such as the tense or agreement systems often pose difficulties, as well as lexical idiosyncrasies such as formulaic sequences, and the discourse/pragmatic constraints operating in French. This volume brings together recent research exploring the advanced learner capabilities in each of those domains, as well as possible explanations for the difficulties they raise for the L2 learner of French. Additionally, one of the areas which has received considerable attention in the French L2 literature on advanced learners, tense and aspect, is also explored from the point of view of French learners of English, to explore any parallels. In presenting this research, the book clarifies the concept of the advanced learner: how does s/he differ from native speakers and why?

Le système verbal du français contemporain résulte d’une évolution séculaire et l’examen diachron... more Le système verbal du français contemporain résulte d’une évolution séculaire et l’examen diachronique des valeurs de chacune des formes contribue à la compréhension de la sémantique verbale contemporaine. Parallèlement, l’étude diachronique du système verbal français ne peut se dispenser d’examiner la répartition des valeurs sémantiques sur les formes (avec la diversité d’interprétations contextuelles qu’elles engendrent) au cours de leur évolution. Toutefois, bien que complémentaires, sémantique et diachronie sont rarement conjointes dans la recherche.
Par sa conjonction entre études sémantiques et diachroniques, ce volume présente une meilleure idée des tendances qui caractérisent l’évolution des formes verbales du français, et de l’impact que l’observation de ces tendances peut avoir sur notre compréhension de la sémantique de ces formes en synchronie.

The uses of the French imperfect have undergone a vast extension throughout the history of the Fr... more The uses of the French imperfect have undergone a vast extension throughout the history of the French language. It has become prototypical in contexts such as description where old French used simple past. The prototypical uses have resulted in a large number of stylistic uses: hypothesis, free indirect speech, and the so-called forain, hypocoristique, ludique and narratif. The wide range of uses raises the question of the semantic unity of that form in synchrony as well as in diachrony.
Here are gathered for the first time discussions of emergent uses of the imperfect, that are tackled through a variety of approaches (Damourette and Pichon’s, Wilmet’s or Guillaume’s systems, logic semantics or relevance theory).
This volume will be of interest for theoreticians interested in linguistic meaning and applied linguists concerned with its organization.

Les formes du passé constituent un écueil pour l'apprentissage du français langue étrangère ; mêm... more Les formes du passé constituent un écueil pour l'apprentissage du français langue étrangère ; même les apprenants les plus avancés échouent à maîtriser leur emploi. Si le manque d'équivalence forme à forme entre les temps des langues constitue une difficulté évidente, la complexité sémantique et distributionnelle des tiroirs français ne doit pas être négligée. Grammairiens et linguistes se sont efforcés de fournir des descriptions des tiroirs du passé mais leur travail, comme celui des didacticiens, s'est révélé inégal.

Les contributions retenues dans ce volume invitent à la réflexion critique en ce qui concerne les descriptions existantes des temps et les approches de leur enseignement. Sont envisagées la structuration du système ainsi que la constitution des tiroirs du point de vue synchronique, évolutif et contrastif, à partir de corpus de différentes variétés de français. La question de l'enseignement de ces notions à des apprenants du français langue étrangère et maternelle est aussi considérée dans les divers contextes de l'acquisition. C'est dans l'esprit d'un dialogue de plus en plus nécessaire entre application et modélisation qu'est proposé cet ouvrage, qui retiendra l'intérêt tant des praticiens que des théoriciens.

Papers by Emmanuelle Labeau

Diachronica, Oct 31, 2013

In Old and Middle French (12 th-16 th centuries), va + INF. was used in past narrations. A simila... more In Old and Middle French (12 th-16 th centuries), va + INF. was used in past narrations. A similar usage seemingly reappears and spreads today. However, the old construction combined with past tenses whereas the new one is found only with forms anchored in present and future. We argue that the contemporary construction derives not from the old one, but from a metanarrative construction. Indeed, on the basis of its future interpretation, va + INF. allows the organization of the narration, announcing subsequent events through a hypernymic 2 process. The periphrasis thus approaches a narrative value through projecting the time of events onto that of narration. With the disappearance of all deictic markers, the goperiphrases are no longer hypernyms: they appear on the same temporal line of events as the neighbouring situations and are understood as fully completed.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2009

Following Andersen's (1986, 1991) study of untutored anglophone learners of Spanish, aspectua... more Following Andersen's (1986, 1991) study of untutored anglophone learners of Spanish, aspectual features have been at the centre of hypotheses on the development of past verbal morphology in language acquisition. The Primacy of Aspect Hypothesis claims that the association of any verb category (Aktionsart) with any aspect (perfective or imperfective) constitutes the endpoint of acquisition. However, its predictions rely on the observation of a limited number of untutored learners at the early stages of their acquisition, and have yet to be confirmed in other settings. The aim of the present thesis is to evaluate the explanatory power of the PAH in respect of the acquisition of French past tenses, an aspect of the language which constitutes a serious stumbling block for foreign learners, even those at the highest levels of proficiency (Coppieters 1987). The present research applies the PAH to the production of 61 anglophone 'advanced learners' (as defined in Bartning 1997)...

Typological studies (Bybee et al. 1994, Dahl 2000, Bourdin 2008 among many others) have shown a t... more Typological studies (Bybee et al. 1994, Dahl 2000, Bourdin 2008 among many others) have shown a tendency for spatial elements (such as movement verbs) to grammaticalise into temporal expressions. The periphrasis made of aller + infinitive has been very productive in Romance languages. If in French, Spanish or Portuguese, it refers to future, it refers to a simple past in Catalan. fr.: je vais aller au cinema esp.: voy a ir al cine pt. Vou ira o cine cat.: vaig anar al cine Barcelo & Bres (2005:168) indicate that, In French, «vers le XVIeme siecle, […] la periphrase a brievement fonctionne comme un temps du passe (alors meme que l’emploi comme temps du futur emergeait)»: (1) Sur ces propos, firent leur accord et, en regardant le lieu le plus propre pour faire cette belle œuvre, elle va dire qu’elle n’en savait point de meilleure ni plus loin de tout soupcon, qu’une petite maison qui etait dedans le parc, ou il y avait chambre et lit tout a propos. (Marguerite de Navarre, L’Heptameron...

Tense, aspect and mood in first and second language acquisition, 2012

Emmanuelle Labeau and Ines Saddour: Introduction Aviya Hacohen: On the acquisition of composition... more Emmanuelle Labeau and Ines Saddour: Introduction Aviya Hacohen: On the acquisition of compositional telicity in Hebrew Milena Kuehnast: Acquisition of negative imperatives in Bulgarian - implications for verbal aspect Yi-An Lin: To spellout or not to spellout? That's the deficit Olga Gupol, Susan Rothstein and Sharon Armon-Lotem: The development of L1 Russian tense-aspect morphology in Russian-Hebrew sequential bilinguals M. Rafael Salaberry: Theoretical views on the development of Spanish L2 knowledge about iterativity and habituality Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig: After process, then what? A longitudinal investigation of the progressive prototype in L2 English Hyun-Jin Kim: A case study of tense-aspect marking by L2 learners of Korean Evgeniya Sergeeva and Jean-Pierre Chevrot: The acquisition of French verbal tenses by Russian adult learners: stem alternation and frequency effect Martin Howard: From tense and aspect to modality: The acquisition of future, conditional and subjunctive morphology in L2 French. A preliminary study

Journal of French Language Studies, 1999

Language Variation and Change

The French Past Historic (passé simple: PS), as a perfective past, is ideally suited to the obitu... more The French Past Historic (passé simple: PS), as a perfective past, is ideally suited to the obituary genre narrating the highlights of a life in chronological order. However, 20th century linguists have claimed that this tense has become obsolete. It is, therefore, worth exploring the ...

Invited special Issue of Syntaxe et Sémantique.

This volume on TAME systems (Tense-aspect-mood-evidentiality) stems from the 10th Chronos confere... more This volume on TAME systems (Tense-aspect-mood-evidentiality) stems from the 10th Chronos conference that took place in Aston University (Birmingham, UK) on 18th-20th April 2011. The papers collated here are therefore a chosen selection from a stringent peer-review process. They also witness to the width and breadth of the interests pursued within the Chronos community. Besides the traditional Western European languages, this volume explores languages from Eastern Europe (Greek, Romanian, Russian) and much further afield such as Brazilian Portuguese, Korean or Mandarin Chinese. Little known languages from the Amazonian forest (Amondawa, Baure) or the Andes (Aymara) also come under scrutiny.

The present book focuses on evolution in the Romance verbal systems. In the wake of Bybee’s and D... more The present book focuses on evolution in the Romance verbal systems. In the wake of Bybee’s and Dahl’s studies, it advocates the benefits of adopting a cross-linguistic and diachronic approach to the study of linguistic phenomena. Within the scope of the Romance family, similar cross-linguistic evolution paths are explored, as related languages at different stages of grammaticalisation may shed light on each other’s developments. A diachronic dimension also proves desirable for several reasons. First, a diachronic approach significantly enhances the explanatory power of linguistic theory by showing how a specific form came to convey a certain function. Second, change is better revealed in diachronic movement than in static synchrony. Third, meaning constantly evolves and a one-off probe will be less revealing than a sustained study through time. Finally and most importantly, similarities across languages appear more obviously in diachrony. All the chapters of this volume participate in their own way to that crosslinguistic and diachronic approach and help make it an original, focused contribution that covers all main Romance languages.

Tense, aspect and mood have attracted much attention in the areas of both first and second langua... more Tense, aspect and mood have attracted much attention in the areas of both first and second language acquisition, but scholars in the two disciplines often fail to learn from each other. Western European languages have also been the focus of most studies, but there would be lessons to learn from less studied languages.
This volume offers new insights on tense, aspect and mood by bringing together the findings of first and second language acquisition, and comparing child and adult, monolingual and multilingual learning processes that are approached from various theoretical points of view. In addition, it spans over a wide range of less studied languages (Bulgarian, Hebrew, Korean, Russian), and Western European languages are studied from new angles.

The Aspect Hypothesis (AH) claims that the association of any verb category (lexical aspect) with... more The Aspect Hypothesis (AH) claims that the association of any verb category (lexical aspect) with any grammatical aspect (perfective or imperfective) constitutes the endpoint of acquisition.
The present book evaluates the explanatory power of the Aspect Hypothesis for the acquisition of French past tenses, which constitutes a serious stumbling block for foreign learners, even at the highest levels of proficiency. The present research applies the Aspect Hypothesis to the production of 61 Anglophone 'advanced learners' in a tutored environment. In so doing, it tests concurrent explanations, including the influence of the input, the influence of chunking, and the hypothesis of cyclic development. It discusses the cotextual and contextual factors that still provoke «non-native glitches» at the final stage of the Aspect Hypothesis.
The book shows that the AH fails to account for the complex phenomenon of past tense development, as it adopts a local and linear approach.

This volume originates from a workshop entitled 'Revisiting advanced varieties in L2 learning' or... more This volume originates from a workshop entitled 'Revisiting advanced varieties in L2 learning' organized by the editors at Aston University (Birmingham, UK) in June 2006. It consists of a peer-reviewed selection of the best contributions.
Many different approaches have been used in the study of advanced learners and their characteristics. Specific areas of language have repeatedly been found to remain problematic even at advanced levels, and much empirical research has been carried out. In particular, areas of grammar such as the tense or agreement systems often pose difficulties, as well as lexical idiosyncrasies such as formulaic sequences, and the discourse/pragmatic constraints operating in French. This volume brings together recent research exploring the advanced learner capabilities in each of those domains, as well as possible explanations for the difficulties they raise for the L2 learner of French. Additionally, one of the areas which has received considerable attention in the French L2 literature on advanced learners, tense and aspect, is also explored from the point of view of French learners of English, to explore any parallels. In presenting this research, the book clarifies the concept of the advanced learner: how does s/he differ from native speakers and why?

Le système verbal du français contemporain résulte d’une évolution séculaire et l’examen diachron... more Le système verbal du français contemporain résulte d’une évolution séculaire et l’examen diachronique des valeurs de chacune des formes contribue à la compréhension de la sémantique verbale contemporaine. Parallèlement, l’étude diachronique du système verbal français ne peut se dispenser d’examiner la répartition des valeurs sémantiques sur les formes (avec la diversité d’interprétations contextuelles qu’elles engendrent) au cours de leur évolution. Toutefois, bien que complémentaires, sémantique et diachronie sont rarement conjointes dans la recherche.
Par sa conjonction entre études sémantiques et diachroniques, ce volume présente une meilleure idée des tendances qui caractérisent l’évolution des formes verbales du français, et de l’impact que l’observation de ces tendances peut avoir sur notre compréhension de la sémantique de ces formes en synchronie.

The uses of the French imperfect have undergone a vast extension throughout the history of the Fr... more The uses of the French imperfect have undergone a vast extension throughout the history of the French language. It has become prototypical in contexts such as description where old French used simple past. The prototypical uses have resulted in a large number of stylistic uses: hypothesis, free indirect speech, and the so-called forain, hypocoristique, ludique and narratif. The wide range of uses raises the question of the semantic unity of that form in synchrony as well as in diachrony.
Here are gathered for the first time discussions of emergent uses of the imperfect, that are tackled through a variety of approaches (Damourette and Pichon’s, Wilmet’s or Guillaume’s systems, logic semantics or relevance theory).
This volume will be of interest for theoreticians interested in linguistic meaning and applied linguists concerned with its organization.

Les formes du passé constituent un écueil pour l'apprentissage du français langue étrangère ; mêm... more Les formes du passé constituent un écueil pour l'apprentissage du français langue étrangère ; même les apprenants les plus avancés échouent à maîtriser leur emploi. Si le manque d'équivalence forme à forme entre les temps des langues constitue une difficulté évidente, la complexité sémantique et distributionnelle des tiroirs français ne doit pas être négligée. Grammairiens et linguistes se sont efforcés de fournir des descriptions des tiroirs du passé mais leur travail, comme celui des didacticiens, s'est révélé inégal.

Les contributions retenues dans ce volume invitent à la réflexion critique en ce qui concerne les descriptions existantes des temps et les approches de leur enseignement. Sont envisagées la structuration du système ainsi que la constitution des tiroirs du point de vue synchronique, évolutif et contrastif, à partir de corpus de différentes variétés de français. La question de l'enseignement de ces notions à des apprenants du français langue étrangère et maternelle est aussi considérée dans les divers contextes de l'acquisition. C'est dans l'esprit d'un dialogue de plus en plus nécessaire entre application et modélisation qu'est proposé cet ouvrage, qui retiendra l'intérêt tant des praticiens que des théoriciens.

Diachronica, Oct 31, 2013

In Old and Middle French (12 th-16 th centuries), va + INF. was used in past narrations. A simila... more In Old and Middle French (12 th-16 th centuries), va + INF. was used in past narrations. A similar usage seemingly reappears and spreads today. However, the old construction combined with past tenses whereas the new one is found only with forms anchored in present and future. We argue that the contemporary construction derives not from the old one, but from a metanarrative construction. Indeed, on the basis of its future interpretation, va + INF. allows the organization of the narration, announcing subsequent events through a hypernymic 2 process. The periphrasis thus approaches a narrative value through projecting the time of events onto that of narration. With the disappearance of all deictic markers, the goperiphrases are no longer hypernyms: they appear on the same temporal line of events as the neighbouring situations and are understood as fully completed.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2009

Following Andersen's (1986, 1991) study of untutored anglophone learners of Spanish, aspectua... more Following Andersen's (1986, 1991) study of untutored anglophone learners of Spanish, aspectual features have been at the centre of hypotheses on the development of past verbal morphology in language acquisition. The Primacy of Aspect Hypothesis claims that the association of any verb category (Aktionsart) with any aspect (perfective or imperfective) constitutes the endpoint of acquisition. However, its predictions rely on the observation of a limited number of untutored learners at the early stages of their acquisition, and have yet to be confirmed in other settings. The aim of the present thesis is to evaluate the explanatory power of the PAH in respect of the acquisition of French past tenses, an aspect of the language which constitutes a serious stumbling block for foreign learners, even those at the highest levels of proficiency (Coppieters 1987). The present research applies the PAH to the production of 61 anglophone 'advanced learners' (as defined in Bartning 1997)...

Typological studies (Bybee et al. 1994, Dahl 2000, Bourdin 2008 among many others) have shown a t... more Typological studies (Bybee et al. 1994, Dahl 2000, Bourdin 2008 among many others) have shown a tendency for spatial elements (such as movement verbs) to grammaticalise into temporal expressions. The periphrasis made of aller + infinitive has been very productive in Romance languages. If in French, Spanish or Portuguese, it refers to future, it refers to a simple past in Catalan. fr.: je vais aller au cinema esp.: voy a ir al cine pt. Vou ira o cine cat.: vaig anar al cine Barcelo & Bres (2005:168) indicate that, In French, «vers le XVIeme siecle, […] la periphrase a brievement fonctionne comme un temps du passe (alors meme que l’emploi comme temps du futur emergeait)»: (1) Sur ces propos, firent leur accord et, en regardant le lieu le plus propre pour faire cette belle œuvre, elle va dire qu’elle n’en savait point de meilleure ni plus loin de tout soupcon, qu’une petite maison qui etait dedans le parc, ou il y avait chambre et lit tout a propos. (Marguerite de Navarre, L’Heptameron...

Tense, aspect and mood in first and second language acquisition, 2012

Emmanuelle Labeau and Ines Saddour: Introduction Aviya Hacohen: On the acquisition of composition... more Emmanuelle Labeau and Ines Saddour: Introduction Aviya Hacohen: On the acquisition of compositional telicity in Hebrew Milena Kuehnast: Acquisition of negative imperatives in Bulgarian - implications for verbal aspect Yi-An Lin: To spellout or not to spellout? That's the deficit Olga Gupol, Susan Rothstein and Sharon Armon-Lotem: The development of L1 Russian tense-aspect morphology in Russian-Hebrew sequential bilinguals M. Rafael Salaberry: Theoretical views on the development of Spanish L2 knowledge about iterativity and habituality Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig: After process, then what? A longitudinal investigation of the progressive prototype in L2 English Hyun-Jin Kim: A case study of tense-aspect marking by L2 learners of Korean Evgeniya Sergeeva and Jean-Pierre Chevrot: The acquisition of French verbal tenses by Russian adult learners: stem alternation and frequency effect Martin Howard: From tense and aspect to modality: The acquisition of future, conditional and subjunctive morphology in L2 French. A preliminary study

Journal of French Language Studies, 1999

Language Variation and Change

The French Past Historic (passé simple: PS), as a perfective past, is ideally suited to the obitu... more The French Past Historic (passé simple: PS), as a perfective past, is ideally suited to the obituary genre narrating the highlights of a life in chronological order. However, 20th century linguists have claimed that this tense has become obsolete. It is, therefore, worth exploring the ...

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this... more Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National-bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at <http:// dnb.ddb.de>. A catalogue record for this book is available from ...

Journal of French Language Studies, 1999

Page 1. Le Mondial en diachronie - 1 Et un, ou deux, ou trois ? Les temps-champions du compte ren... more Page 1. Le Mondial en diachronie - 1 Et un, ou deux, ou trois ? Les temps-champions du compte rendu sportif depuis 1950 1. Coup d'envoi En 1979, Jacques Cellard avançait que 'le passé simple [PS] se rencontrait beaucoup ...

The uses of the French imperfect have undergone a vast extension throughout the history of the Fr... more The uses of the French imperfect have undergone a vast extension throughout the history of the French language. It has become prototypical in contexts such as description where old French used simple past. The prototypical uses have resulted in a large number of stylistic uses: ...

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2006

On the basis of a transcribed French television corpus made of two news bulletins, two chat shows... more On the basis of a transcribed French television corpus made of two news bulletins, two chat shows and one literary programme recorded in February 2003, this paper explores the claim that passé simple (PS) may still be used in prepared oral discourse (Pfister 1974). The corpus does not provide support for that use on television, but it seems to suggest a shift from temporal to aspectual features in French television talk: a perfective presentation prevails on a past presentation. This trend would need to be confirmed by a larger television corpus, tested in other types of oral discourse and tested on written corpora.

Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française 2008, 2008

La présentation des voeux constitue une tradition bien ancrée dans les sociétés occidentales: les... more La présentation des voeux constitue une tradition bien ancrée dans les sociétés occidentales: les présidents français y sacrifient le 31 décembre, les monarques belge et britannique s'expriment respectivement la veille et le jour de Noël. L'une des rares incursions d'un discours politique en intégralité dans le quotidien du citoyen, le discours de voeux s'adresse à un large public grâce à son passage à la télévision à une heure de grande écoute. Cette diffusion maximale se double d'une inévitable simplification langagière, au moins au niveau lexicologique, qui fait passer le message du discours écrit et lu au discours parlé (Ockrent, 1988:161). Au niveau thématique, le rituel comprend, outre les souhaits de rigueur et des perspectives pour l'an neuf, un bilan de l'année qui se termine. Les impératifs de simplicité linguistique, tout comme l'évocation d'un passé proche et non entièrement écoulé devrait disqualifier l'emploi du passé simple (PS), passé coupé du présent et stylistiquement marqué. Toutefois, des occurrences de PS apparaissent dans les discours de voeux des présidents de la Cinquième République et du roi des Belges ; leur analyse fera l'objet de cette étude. On débutera par un rappel du statut du PS à l'oral. Après une discussion du genre « discours de voeux » et une présentation du corpus considérés, on discutera les formes du PS relevées et on tentera d'interpréter leur rôle dans le discours de voeux.

Travaux de linguistique, 2002

Réduit à la portion congrue dans les états anciens de la langue où ses emplois modernes fondament... more Réduit à la portion congrue dans les états anciens de la langue où ses emplois modernes fondamentaux pouvaient encore être assumés par le passé simple (PS) (voir Brunot, Faye 1933), l'imparfait (IMP) transmet en français moderne un vaste éventail de réalisations. Leur liste plus ou ...

Revue Romane, 2007

Our study discusses the ability of the présent historique, a tense « plus abstrait et donc plus d... more Our study discusses the ability of the présent historique, a tense « plus abstrait et donc plus difficile à comprendre » [more abstract and therefore more difficult to understand] (Béguin 1998, p. 36), to replace the passé simple (PS) in historical narration. It is based on a diachronic corpus of extracts taken from history books on the French Revolution, ranging from the beginning of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century. Firstly, we justify the primacy of the passé simple for historical narrative, while considering the wider areas of tense and aspect. After a description of the corpus and a summary of the hypotheses under study, we present our quantitative results with the aim of assessing the use of the présent historique in the corpus in comparison with other tenses. Finally, we study our corpus from a qualitative perspective and we try to conclude upon our initial hypotheses.