Psychomécanique et évolution de signifiant : le cas du coordonnant négatif à l'aube du français moderne

Abstract

Claire Badiou-Nonferran : Psychomechanics and evolution of significants : the case of negative coordinating conjunction in early modem French. This paper questions the relevance of psychomechanical descriptions in diachonical linguistics. In particular, it wonders if psychomechanics is able to explain the evolution of significants : that is to say, in the case of negative coordinating, the change from ne (the etymological form) to ni (a form which appeared in thirteenth century and replaced defmitely ne during the seventeenth century). Regarding this subject, psychomechanical specialists assume that the hypothesis of "one morphologized phonem" (in technical use of psychomechanics "un formant") [no labialized e / 1] (which can also be found in the couple se/si indicating hypothesis), is able to explain the distribution of ne/ni in early and middle French ; they also assume that this hypothesis is able to explain the over ail change from ne to ni in the history of French language. This paper demonstrates that on the other hand, the psychomechanical hypothesis does not fully explain the last phase of the competition between ne and ni during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For this last phase of variation, this paper proposes a description which maintains the psychosemiological hypothesis of the psychomechanical theory only at the cost of a number of modifications of the theory.