Grammaticalisation et évolution des systèmes grammaticaux

Abstract

Christiane Marchello-Nizia : Grammaticalisation et évolution des systèmes grammaticaux "Grammaticalization" is defined as the formation of grammatical elements out of lexical units, and the creation of new paradigms. This paper wants to attract attention to a third type of changes, on a more abstract level: the changes which modify the system of distinctions and oppositions on which the paradigms of the language, its grammar, are founded. The author analyzes three changes which have occurred in French from the end of the twelfth century to the sixteenth century: the reorganization of the system of the demonstratives, the replacement of moult by beaucoup and très, and the introduction of new forms in the paradigm of the indefinites. She proposes to explain these changes by the hypothesis that they reflect the introduction in French of a formal and paradigmatic difference between units of first level (nouns, pronouns, verbs) and units of second level (adjectives, determiners, adverbs).