Copularisation processes in French: Constructional intertwining, lexical attraction, and other dangerous things

Abstract

Copular verbs most often originate from bleached intransitive verbs that have incorporated in their valency originally optional predicative adjuncts. The originally optional element is then reanalyzed as the central predicate and gradually extends its scope through the lexicon along the following path: A>N(P). Although at first sight, the case of the (reflexive) evidential copulas s’avérer and se révéler - both meaning ‘turn out to be’ - may look like instances of this general diachronic schema, we argue that the present state is the result, on the one hand, of the complex interaction of the indirect (with comme ‘as’) and the direct copular construction (constructional intertwining), and, on the other, of lexical attraction between se révéler and s’avérer . The case of se révéler and s’avérer suggests that copularisation processes are far more diverse and complex than generally assumed.