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Non-discrete reference, discourse construction, and the French neuter clitic pronouns*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2008

Francis Cornish
Francis Cornish
Affiliation:
School of European and Mordern Language Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NFEngland
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Abstract

This article examines a range of predicate- and proposition-anaphoric phenomena in French, chiefly involving the ‘neuter’ clitic pronouns le, y and en, from the point of view of their discourse motivation. One aim is to characterise the relatively little-studied phenomenon of ‘non-discrete’ reference in discourse. Another is to determine the extent to which the speaker\ writer can use an anaphoric expression in such a way as to ‘release’ the predicative element from within a co-occuring functionally non-perdicative expression or sequence, or to asssign a ‘third order’ entity status as a mutually validated fact to what in context has been interpreted as a predication. Such uses constitute what I am calling the ‘discourse-operator’ function which anaphoric expressions may fulfil in the appropriate discourse context. The speacker\writer's ability to use predicate anaphors in this kind of the way is constrained by the meta-discursive criterion of coherence.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , September 1991 , pp. 123 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

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