Prepositional ʺQuiʺ and ʺYʺ :
Rendering Reference in Classical French and Modern French Cover Image

« Qui » prépositionnel et « y » : mode de donation référentielle en français classique et en français moderne
Prepositional ʺQuiʺ and ʺYʺ : Rendering Reference in Classical French and Modern French

Author(s): Ben Arbia Achraf
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Applied Linguistics, Descriptive linguistics
Published by: Editura Universităţii din Piteşti
Keywords: anaphoric pronoun; semantic trait referential; ambiguity antecedent referential; donation mode salience;

Summary/Abstract: In this work, addressing, from a semantic point of view, these two types of anaphoric markers is not irrelevant. Indeed, who prepositional and the pronoun adverbial present certain divergences in their functioning referential in classical French as opposed to modern French. These two pronouns, in their anaphoric sense, enjoy a great freedom related to their ability to reclaim interchangeably from [human] or [non-human] backgrounds. This freedom, dating from the ancient language, is in force throughout the seventeenth century. Which prepositional refers throughout the century to [non-human], y anaphorise a antecedent having the semantic trait [human]. In modern French, these two pronouns are categorized as referring to the [human]. However, the deviation of the standard persists and we encounter cases reminiscent of the old language. Based on these different findings, we will try in this contribution to study the referential functioning of pronouns that prepositional and y and to demonstrate that the indetermination that governs their semantic functioning is source Referential ambiguity, essentially in the case of competition between several antecedents present for the same term of recovery.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 17
  • Page Range: 9-17
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: French