Sur la nature et la structure des consécutives intégrées

This paper offers an analysis of the French integrated consecutive (result) construction, starting out from the correlative system observed in the ancient Indo-European languages, in particular the one which J. Haudry terms « dyptique inverse ». It is shown that the morpheme que, a relative marker, has a content that is identifiable on the basis of the main clause (as in the case of canonical relative clauses) but which functions as a causal principle in relation to the subordinate clause. At the same time, it is also shown that sentences containing consecutive subordinate clauses involve two distinct structures superimposed one on the other: one of these is defined in terms of the hierarchical constituents of distributional analysis, and the other in terms of two independent clauses. The latter structure makes it possible to account for certain ambiguities that may be found in their interpretation. In that respect as well, consecutive clauses are similar to canonical relatives.