Revue Romane. Langue et littérature - Volume 47, Issue 2, 2012

The use of the preposition à ‘at’ involving ‘social routines’ gave rise to less attention than its locative use in the linguistic literature on space. In this paper, we highlight the main properties of this use of the preposition –‘functional’ expression of an activity or state, neutrality to number, possible lack of reference to a landmark/ground entity– by successively examining landmark nouns that refer to ‘objects’ and to ‘locations’. On this basis, we then sketch out the semantic mechanism which, according to us, seems to underlie this interpretation of the preposition à. Finally, we parallel this semantic functioning with that of bare singular nouns and incorporated nominals as recently described in the literature.

In this paper we present a corpus-based, cognitive-linguistic account of the singular/plural agreement alternation with binominal constructions belonging to the [N1singular + de + N2plural]-type. From a syntagmatic point of view, plural agreement reflects a shift from N1 as the head of the Noun Phrase towards N1 being a quantifier to N2. This view is in line with grammaticalization theory and holds for many examples, yet there are important counterexamples where we find a singular verb despite N1 being used as a quantifier. The Hispanic linguistic literature mentions several factors that would favor plural agreement with N2 such as an indefinite article, the distance between the verb and the subject, the position of the subject and pseudopartitive rather than partitive use. The corpus analysis will show that these factors are not conclusive. Our alternative account has recourse to the concept of lexical persistence and shows to what extent the quantifier use of N1 retains semantic features associated with the head use of N1. We argue that verbal agreement phenomena can be motivated by the interaction between lexical persistence and the morpho-syntactic and semantic criteria listed in literature. Lexical persistence is thus not a side effect of the grammaticalization process, but a crucial dimension of binominal constructions in that it allows us to explain quantifier uses of N1 with a singular verb.

This paper focuses on the variety of ways to communicate a directive illocutionary act in modern French. I argue that every type of directive speech act can be regarded as stemming from a convention, be it a linguistic one, for on-record speech acts, or a discursive one, for off-record speech acts. The various acceptations of the “conventionality” applied to on-record indirect speech acts (ISAs) are reconsidered. More specifically, I claim that the distinction, in terms of politeness, between on-record and off-record ISAs does not coincide with the opposition between conventional and non-conventional speech acts. Second, I show that it is necessary to identify two types of conventions or communicative strategies to perform off-record directives. The first consists in referring to a reason to act; the second is evoking the requested action.

It is generally held that Latin word-final, post-tonic -ē yielded *-e in Proto-Romance, even if secure attestations are lacking.However, here it is suggested that a number of forms thought to instantiate analogical replacement of expected *-e with -i are in fact phonologically regular, thus revealing that the real outcome of Lat. -ē was PR *-i.2 The relevant forms are: a small handful of adverbs: It. oggi ‘today’ < hodiē, Rm. azi ‘today’ < hac diē, It./As. tardi ‘late’ < tardē, It. lungi/As. lloñi ‘far’ < longē; the 2sg. imperative of Italian, Old Portuguese and Asturian e-verbs (It. bevi/OPt. bive (with metaphony)/As. bebi ‘drink!’) as well as the Romanian 2sg. imperatives in -i (Rm. vezi ‘see!’ cazi ‘fall!’, etc.). This hypothesis renders superfluous a number of poorly understood analogies needed to explain these forms and sheds new light on the enigmatic Romanian imperative in -i and its hitherto unexplained association with transitivity.

The influence of La Recherche du Temps perdu by Proust can be felt in many current French writers. His style, as well as his various elements, have had many followers who have focused on some aspects of the proustian work. One of those writers is Patrick Modiano. The memories of the Occupation period, which Modiano didn’t witness himself, but he feels he belongs to, hover over his work, sometimes clearly, sometimes in a more subtle way. All this creates an atmosphere that we can consider « proustian » and that reaffirms itself when we see how his most important topics are memory, time and oblivion. This is particularly evident in Livret de Famille, where he at times keeps obvious similarities with, and at times far and clear echoes of Proust.

With reference to Paul Ricoeur’s essays Time and Narrative I–III (1983–1985) and Oneself as Another (1990), this paper discusses the Jewish element in some of the works of Marguerite Duras, especially in AbahnSabana David (1970). Using some of Ricoeur’s concepts such as sameness (idem) and selfhood (ipse) together with his model of a triple mimesis, the author argues that Duras’ strong engagement for justice for minority groups and especially for the Jewish cause, has its roots in thepréfiguration influenced by her upbringing in a French colony and by experiences in her close family during and after World War II. Her various uses of narrative silences characterize her style of writing, together with a deliberate confusion of identity marks in the presentation of her fictional characters.