La distinction proposition principale / proposition subordonnée dans les grammaires scolaires et les instructions officielles en France (xixe-xxie siècles)

Abstract

Here, we are concerned with the persistence in the idea of main clause since the 19th century up to the official teachings and terminology for high schools of 2015, 2018 and 2020. While the general grammar text books, or the more academic ones, are attempting to standardise the rules of grammar in the simple sentence and in the complex sentence at the end of the 18th–beginning of the 19th centuries, the school grammar text book generalises the logical analysis. In spite of isolated attempts by so-called structural grammar text books of the 1970s, and despite the 2015 syllabus, the main clause remains central to the grammatical discussion and to the grammatical handbooks as the first section of the complex sentence. This causes difficulty, as it results in problems of meaning and separation for the subordinate (“I note” main clause/“that you are there” subordinate clause) as also for the relative clauses, particularly in relation to the texts.