Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T03:01:05.943Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Agreement and discourse: from cohesion to coherence*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Francis Cornish
Francis Cornish
Affiliation:
School of European and Modern Language Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NF
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The article argues that, contrary to a widespread view (e.g. Haiman, 1985; Palmer, 1984), agreement in those languages which exhibit it is not a purely redundant, semantically empty and grammatically predictable phenomenon, but performs several important functions at the level of discourse.

Taking French as the example language, I will argue (section 2.1) that agreement signals the function-argument interpretation to be assigned to pairs of expressions of various kinds; and second, that it may also code anaphorically the high-focus status of particular discourse referents (section 2.2). Section 3 compares certain written errors in agreement marking made by advanced learners of French, with certain other interpretative errors in their reading of French articles - errors based on agreement relations and leading to the mis-assignment of reference to an agreement target or personal pronoun. Finally, section 4 argues that third person personal pronouns should be treated differently from the (essentially predicative) agreement targets discussed in sections 2 and 3, claiming that they do not participate in agreement stricto sensu.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , September 1994 , pp. 191 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arrivé, M., Gadet, F. and Galmiche, M. (1986). La Grammaire d'aujourd'hui. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Blinkenberg, A. (1950). Le Problème de l'accord en français contemporain: essai d'une typologie. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Boël, E. (1976). Le genre des noms désignant les professions et les situations féminines en français moderne. Revue Romane 11.1: 16–72.Google Scholar
Bosch, P. (1983). Agreement and Anaphora: a Study of the Rôle of Pronouns in Syntax and Discourse. London: Académie Press.Google Scholar
Bosch, P. (1987). Pronouns under control? A reply to Liliane Tasmowski and Paul Verluyten. Journal of Semantics 5: 65–78.Google Scholar
Corbett, G. G. (1983). Hiérarchies, Targets and Controllers: Agreement Patterns in Slavic. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Corbett, G. G. (1991). Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cornish, F. (1986). Anaphoric Relations in English and French: a Discourse Perspective. London and Canberra: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Cornish, F. (1988). Anaphoric pronouns: under linguistic control, or signalling particular discourse representations? Journal of Semantics 5: 233–260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornish, F. (1990). Anaphore pragmatique, référence, et modèles du discours. In Kleiber, G. and Tyvaert, J.-E. (eds.), L'Anaphore et ses domaines, (Recherches Linguistiques XIV). Klincksieck: Paris, pp. 81–96.Google Scholar
Cornish, F. (1991). Non-discrete référence, discourse construction, and the French neuter clitic pronouns. Journal of French Language Studies 1.2: 123–138.Google Scholar
Dingwall, W. O. (1969). Government, concord and feature-change rules. Glossa 3.2: 210–240.Google Scholar
Donnellan, K. (1966). Référence and definite descriptions. Philosophical Review 75: 281–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fauconnier, G. (1974). La Conférence: syntaxe ou sémantique? Paris: Le Seuil.Google Scholar
Finnemann, M. D. (1992). Learning agreement in the noun phrase: the stratégies of three first-year Spanish students. International Review of Applied Linguistics 30.2: 121–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haiman, J. (1985). Natural Syntax: Iconicity and Erosion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keenan, E. L. (1979). On surface form and logical form. In Kachru, B. B. (éd.), Linguistics in the Seventies. Department of Linguistics, University of IIlinois, pp. 163–203.Google Scholar
Milner, J.-C. (1978). De la Syntaxe à l'interprétation: quantités, insultes, exclamations. Paris: Le Seuil.Google Scholar
Palmer, F. R. (1984). Grammar (2nd edn). Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Reichler-Béguelin, M.-J. (1988). Norme et textualité. Les procédés référentiels considérés comme déviants en langue écrite. In Schoeni, G., Bronckart, J.-P. and Perrenoud, P. (eds.), La langue française est-elle gouvernable? Neuchâtel and Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé, pp. 185–216.Google Scholar
Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In Rosch, E. and Lloyd, B. B. (eds.), Cognition and Categorization, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 27–48.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, S. (1970). Modern French ce: The Neuter Pronoun in Adjectival Prédication. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tasmowski, L. and Verluyten, P. (1985). Control mechanisms of anaphora. Journal of Semantics 4: 341–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiese, B. (1983). Anaphora by pronouns. Linguistics 21(2): 373–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar