Temporal structures in Occitan and French oral narrative

This article explores the temporal structuring of Occitan and French oral narratives. Using contemporary linguistic theory and through a corpus-based analysis, it aims to explore the relationship between language and orality, with a specific focus on two key temporal features of oral narrative, i.e. frames and connectives. The authors create a digitised corpus involving three sub-corpora demonstrating different degrees of orality in Occitan and these are also compared with a French oral corpus. The analysis shows that there is quantitative evidence to support the idea that frames and connectives have complementary roles in narrative, with inverse proportions of frames and connectives in the four sub-corpora. In terms of degrees of orality, the results suggest that not only is the use of particular connectives strongly associated with oral as opposed to written narratives but also that factors relating to sources, transmission and storytelling practice are highly influential and interact with each other in complex ways. Frames are generally ‘primarily structural’ in function rather than ‘temporal and structural’ and certain frame introducers recur in all the sub-corpora but there are complex differences between the different sub-corpora and a clear link with story-type. Questions of sources, transmission and narrative practice are central to our argumentation throughout and are particularly striking in the case of the contemporary Occitan sub-corpus.

Minimodel of semantic synthesis of Russian sentences

A formal linguistitic model is presented, which produces, for a given conceptual representation of an extralinguistic situation, a corresponding semantic representation [SemR] that, in its turn, underlies the deep-syntactic representations of four near-synonymous Russian sentences expressing the starting information. Two full-fledged lexical entries are given for the lexemes besporjadki ‘disturbance’ and stolknovenie ‘clash(N)’, appearing in these sentences. Some principles of lexicalization – that is, matching the formal lexicographic definitions to the starting semantic representation in order to produce the deep-syntactic structures of the corresponding sentences – are formulated and illustrated; the problem of approximate matching is dealt with in sufficient detail.

Compounding in Old Italian

This paper provides a corpus-based analysis of compounding in Old Italian. The semantic and formal properties of compound words attested in Old Italian are described and discussed through the theoretical tools provided by Construction Morphology. The analysis confirms that compounding is exploited since the earliest attestations of the language. It reveals that Old Italian compounds are mostly right-headed endocentric or exocentric: particularly, endocentric [ADV-Y]Y, [A-N]N|A and exocentric [V-N]N are the most productive schemas. Moreover, this study highlights a significant influence of Latin on Italian compounding, whereby many Old Italian compounds are Latin loanwords and calques which served as a model for the creation of new native compounds.

The past participle and the periphrastic passive construction in French

Our hypothesis is that the past participle is a singular form in the TAM (tense-aspect-mood) linguistic system in French, in that it represents the internal time of the process on its terminal point ([R = Et]). Due to this representation of internal time, the p.p. can be related to the second argument – the patientive argument – of a direct transitive process: it is the essential element of the passive construction. Contrary to what is often written, the copula être ‘be’, is an optional element: it may serve to develop the construction in its periphrastic dimension, but it is not necessary to the passive construction itself, as the cases of the passive in the participial clause demonstrate. Moreover, the p.p. is not intrinsically resultative or processive, no more than it is active or passive: from its aspect [R = Et], it can, in interaction with different contexts, participate in the production of these different effects of meaning in discourse.

La variation diatopique dans les expressions figées spécialisées

Résumé En partant de l’hypothèse que chaque variété dialectale traduit l’idiosyncrasie des différentes cultures, nous abordons la variation des unités phraséologiques spécialisées de l’espagnol de l’Espagne péninsulaire (EP) et de l’espagnol du Venezuela (EV) dans des arrêts de pourvois en cassation en matière civile. Le travail qui suit présente brièvement les ordres juridiques, compare les superstructures des arrêts, extrait et compare les expressions figées spécialisées, à la lumière de la linguistique de corpus, pour détecter leurs similitudes et leurs différences. Cette analyse démontre : (1) l’existence de variations lexicales aussi bien au sein d’une variété d’espagnol qu’entre deux variétés d’espagnol (2) l’espagnol vénézuélien présente plus de formulations synonymes pour ce qui est de la partie demandante et (3) les usages des expressions figées spécialisées diffèrent chez les juristes qui assistent les parties concernées et qui interviennent pendant la procédure.

Variation diatopique de la langue espagnole

Résumé Dans son fonctionnement, la langue se caractérise par une évidente hétérogénéité qui naît de l’existence de variétés linguistiques et de la production de variantes lexicales souvent recensées dans les dictionnaires d’usage ou dans des supports méta-lexicographiques divers. Dans le domaine lexical, la variation dans le champ des unités phraséologiques a surtout fait l’objet d’un recensement de variantes de sens équivalents mais des travaux récents sur la synonymie et l’homonymie ouvrent des perspectives intéressantes pour une nouvelle typologie de ces phénomènes. Ils exigent une redéfinition des différents produits de la variation et peuvent alimenter une réflexion fructueuse sur les conséquences de la fragmentation géographique d’une langue pour l’intercompréhension de ses usagers.

Synchronic and diachronic analysis of prepositional multiword modifiers across Romance languages

Lexicological and lexicographical studies on multiword expressions in Romance languages have significantly increased in recent years. Even though some attention has been paid to Multiwords functioning as adjectives and adverbs, the structural and the functional relation between them has not been clarified yet. Employing both a qualitative and quantitative approach, this corpus-based investigation aims at exploring the diatopic distribution and the evolution of Romance multiword lexemes having the form of a prepositional phrase and the function of an adjective or/and an adverb (or both functions). According to data taken from corpora of Latin, Old Italian, Old Spanish and Middle French, this contribution investigates the relationship between the different degrees of schematicity and the productivity of this kind of multiword lexemes in order to highlight the evolutional path and the diachronic/diatopic principles engaged in the multiword modifying system across the different Romance languages taken into consideration.

Sur les verbes de réalisation en anglo-normand

Résumé L’article étudie les collocations correspondant aux verbes de réalisation et leurs bases nominales en anglo-normand à partir du dépouillement exhaustif de la chanson de geste Beuve de Hamptone (fin du XIIe siècle). Les observations concernant les verbes de réalisation sont formalisées moyennant les trois fonctions lexicales standard simples Real i, Fact i et Labreal ij, ainsi que des fonctions complexes et des configurations de fonctions lexicales incluant les trois fonctions mentionnées. Les bases des collocations sont décrites moyennant des étiquettes sémantiques qui, comme les fonctions lexicales, relèvent de la Lexicologie Explicative et Combinatoire. L’article présente un grand nombre d’exemples et de nombreuses observations concernant la traduction de l’anglo-normand au français moderne.