Lexique et point de vue : l’angle syntagmatique

Abstract

This article tackles the question of point of view carried by lexicon. Whereas this subject is often considered from a paradigmatic perspective, this article proposes to describe it from a syntagmatic perspective. The word guerre (war) and the three syntagms la guerre (de X) avec Y, la guerre (de X) contre Y or la guerre entre X et Y are described in a press corpus. It appears that these syntagms configure a way of seeing the conflict relation (as reciprocal or not). Whereas at a paradigmatic level, the locutor is often considered as an explanatory factor for point of view, this study of point of view at a syntagmatic level points out different factors regulating occurrences: at a linguistic level, the characteristics of the prepositions, from which depend how far away X is from Y, and at a mixed textual and referential level, the salience of the event.