La gnomicidad/genericidad de las paremias desde el punto de vista del tiempo y del aspecto

Abstract

It is widely accepted that proverbs are part of generic sentences, even though they show a very specific kind of genericity, generally seen as a genericity by saying and not based upon a state of affairs. If the genericity of proverbs seems quite obvious in usual case studies, it is not always so, and problems quickly arise: a) Some situational sentences and some proverbs show very similar surface structures, a fact that makes difficult to decide whether they belong to the first of the second category, as illustrated in: Il y a un Bon Dieu pour les ivrognes (proverb), Il y a de l’eau dans le gaz (situational sentence). b) Some sentences show personal pronouns or deictic marks that can result in an eventive interpretation or not, as can be seen in: Faites ce que je dis, ne faites pas ce que je fais (proverb), Hoy por ti, mañana por mí (situational sentence). c) Nominal sentences are far from having a clear status, due to the lack of inflected verb, as can be seen in: Juventud, divino tesoro (situational sentence), A bon entendeur, salut (situational sentence), Premier arrivé, premier servi (proverb), A buenas horas, mangas verdes (proverb). This study will attempt to show that the genericity of sapiential forms can be brought out by means of effective criteria essentially based upon aspectual properties, since the gnomicity of proverbs is opposed to the eventness of situational sentences.