Resultative Constructions and Verbs of Chromatic Change in French

Abstract

This paper proposes a corpus-based analysis of a set of constructions expressing chromatic change with peindre and colorer as ‘emblematic’ verbs. In a verb-framed language such as French, such resultative constructions constitute a typological anomaly. This paper presents three advances: (i) contrary to the common view, French does tolerate adjectival resultative complements, albeit marginally and under specific conditions; (ii) the array of prepositions found in these constructions is larger than commonly accepted, although one has to distinguish instrumental ( a, par, avec ) constructions and resultative constructions proper ( en, de ); (iii) the choice between de and en is not arbitrary, but oriented by the diathetic properties of the predicate and by the affectedness of the predication base. The constructions can be put on a scale of resultativeness.