Variation déterminative et structuration informationnelle dans les textes génériques

Abstract

Generic noun phrases are expressed in contemporary English with varied formal devices, including definite singulars and bare plurals. More remarkably, generic texts typically use indefinite plural phrases in case of discourse anaphora. Considering this variation from the way anaphora works as well as from the way indefinite and definite noun phrases relate to one another in non generic contexts, we examine to what extent the definite article functions as a topic marker as well as anaphorically with regard to text coherence. In this paper, we propose an analysis of anaphoric noun phrases and determiner variations within their context-specific setting and in relation with the information structuring, based on a corpus of generic texts. Our study relies on data collected in two encyclopedia articles and two texts dedicated to popularizing scientific information about a generic referent that is given as the topic. As we analyse the predicative context, we show that although both bare plurals and definite singulars reemphasize an operation of categorization within a notional domain, they infer different discourse and utterance parameters. We assume that the definite article marks the mention of an already accessible semantic content that is re-affirmed and redefined. It also indicates that the referent is salient as it is located within its class and distinguished from all other constituents. We point at the fundamental function of the generic definite as presupposing an anaphoric dimension from a cognitive point of view.