Describing the meanings of French pronominal-verbal constructions for students of French〈--〉English translation

Abstract

The possible readings for French pronominal-verbal construction are (a) reflexive; (b) reciprocal; (c) intrinsic; and (d) passive. These types of interpretations were elicited from Francophone and non-Francophone university students in English〈--〉French translation. In light of the results and problems found in this study, we examined dictionary and grammar explanations of the meanings of verbs in these constructions. Dictionaries, regarding these readings as sub-meanings of the verbs, do not make relations among them explicit, and appear to be unsystematic in the use of terminology. Pedagogical grammars for French learners are incomplete in showing these relations, sometimes inaccurate in generalizations about conditions on reading types, and misleading as to their status as (potential) properties of sentences. In light of a critical examination of the treatment of the readings of pronominal-verbal constructions in a sample of such grammars, we propose a set of points which we think such grammar explanations must include for this construction. More generally, in addition, we claim that authors of such grammars have underestimated the task of writing accurate and complete semantic explanations, in their unwillingness to deal with concepts of levels of grammatical analysis and relations among them, with the terminology necessary to do so.