French Prepositions Research Articles

Humanness, pronoun types, and orphan prepositions in French

Abstract This paper is about the distribution of null and strong pronouns in French prepositional phrases in relation to the humanness of the preposition’s complement. The existing literature suggests that the mapping between pronoun type and humanness is characterized by soft complementarity, linking human complements to strong pronouns, and non-human complements to null pronouns. In the empirical coverage of the phenomenon experimental studies are still underrepresented: so far, no data on pronoun choice is available, and regarding interpretation data, the only existing study does not include null pronouns. Two experiments were conducted with the goal to fill this research gap. The results show that soft complementarity only applies to pronoun choice: human complements are typically referred to by strong pronouns, and non-human complements by null pronouns. As related to interpretation, however, both strong and null pronouns are preferably interpreted as human. We account for this asymmetry based on the general preference of pronouns to be interpreted as human unless prevented by strong constraints (as in the case of Engl. it).

ROUND-TRIP TRANSLATION AS A WRITING TOOL FOR ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE

The potential of the technique known as round-trip translation to detect errors in language use has been exploited in the design of programs for automatic error detection (Hermet & Désilets, 2009; Madnani et al., 2012), but to my knowledge, no study has explored the potential of translators as a tool that learners themselves can use to correct their writing in a second language. Consequently, there is no information as to how many of the transformations introduced by round-trip translation are useful for learners, how many simply rephrase the original text, or how many actually make it worse. Hermet and Désilets (2009) report a “repair rate” of 66.4% working with prepositions in French, while Madnani et al. (2012) report 36% successful changes, 33% paraphrasing and 31% changes for the worse in 200 sentences in English. The present study found a significant improvement in the number of corrections in texts written in English by Spanish students (97%) at the cost of generating an excessive number of false positives (34%). The most reliable transformations are those affecting spelling or word morphology, which correct errors in 88.33% and 78.57% of cases, respectively. These results show the progress made in machine translation and the reliability of the round-trip translation technique for correcting errors and inform which transformations are most useful.

Prepositional constituents in multi-word units: an experimental reading study of the French preposition de

Abstract The processing of multi-word units and complex words has been one of the main issues of psycholinguistic research in the last decades. However, there is still no mutual consent on how multi-word units, complex words, and their internal constituents are accessed in language processing. Current models of linguistic theory and language processing generally assume that there is no interconnection between the morphosyntactic information of a lexical unit and its phonetic realization. Recent studies challenge this assumption and suggest a relationship between the morphosyntactic, lexical, and pragmatic information of specific lexemes or morphemes and the phonetic signal. The present study adds to these current studies in psycholinguistics and morphophonetics by investigating the French preposition de ‘of’ as a constituent in different construction types. While de occurs regularly as a free lexeme in syntactic structures, it also appears as a bound constituent in lexicalized and grammaticalized constructions. First, this study presents an analysis of French de in eye-tracking data from a reading task with French native speakers. Second, this study presents a statistical analysis of acoustic durations of de from an experimental reading task. The results suggest that the constituent de shows certain peculiarities in its processing and acoustic realization as a constituent in a certain construction type. The results are discussed with regard to current theoretical approaches to the processing of multi-word units, n-grams, and complex words.

"Beginning" and "le début" in the Service Units of the Russian and French Languages

Prepositions in all languages represent a limitless field for research and comparisons. The function of prepositions is to express various relations of objective reality. The subject of the research of the presented article is a detailed description of the functioning of the component "beginning" in phraseological prepositions in Russian and the component "le début" in phraseological prepositions in French. Prepositions have been the subject of study by many linguists T.I. Antonova, N.I. Astafieva, O.S. Akhmanova, A.M. Babkin, M.V. Binkovskaya, R.V. Boldyrev, V.S. Bondarenko, N.I. Bukatevich, M.S. Bunina, M.V. Vsevolodova, L.N. Zasorina, G.A. Zolotova, E.G. Kulinich, Yu.I. Ledeneva, T.A. Panteleeva, R.P. Rogozhnikova, E.T. Cherkasova, G.A. Shiganova and others. The study is conducted in a comparative manner. The novelty of the research undertaken lies in the fact that phraseological prepositions with the component "beginning" in Russian and the component "le début" in French represent the beginning of an action or phenomenon, limitation, following and preceding in time. Empirical material shows that the productivity of the formation of phraseological prepositions with the meaning of temporality is quite high both in Russian and in French. Having analyzed the internal organization of phraseological prepositions with the studied component, we come to the conclusion that the Russian language has a greater variety of structural organization schemes than in French, with all its analyticity.

Contrastive Analysis on French and Malay Language Prepositions

Contrastive Analysis on French and Malay Language Prepositions

The Grammaticalization of the Epistemic Adverb Perhaps in Late Middle and Early Modern English

Abstract Old and Early Middle English did not yet have modal sentential adverbs of low probability. Old Norse did not have such words, either. From the 13th century onwards first epistemic prepositional phrases of Anglo-Norman origin functioning as modal adverbials consisting of the preposition per/par and nouns such as adventure, case, chance were borrowed into Middle English. In the late 15th century an analogous hybrid form per-hap(s), the combination of the Old French preposition per/par ‘by, through’ and the Old Norse noun hap(p) ‘chance’, both singular and plural, was coined according to the same pattern and was gradually grammaticalized as a univerbated modal sentence adverb in Early Modern English. The Norse root happ- was the source of some other new (Late) Middle English words which had no cognate equivalents in the source language: the adjective happy with its derivatives happily, happiness, etc. and the verb happen. Together with another new Late Middle English formation may-be, a calque of French peutêtre, perhaps superseded the competing forms mayhap, (modal) happily, percase, peradventure, perchance, prepositional phrases with the noun hap and, finally, per-hap itself in Early Modern English after two centuries of lexical layering or multiple synonymy. The history of perhaps is a clear example of grammaticalization, whereby a prepositional phrase became a modal adverb now also used as a discourse marker. We find here all the typical features of the process: phonetic attrition, decategorization, univerbation, and obligatorification.

L’Existence prépositionnelle. Par Irving Goh

This essay stems from a single, quasi-microscopic motivic cell: the French preposition à. Examining its philosophical more so than its syntactical uses, Irving Goh stresses the pre-positional force it discreetly conveys, urging us to parse it in a literal sense. For inasmuch as à arises before (‘pre-’) a position is pinpointed or assumed, it cannily lends itself to the broader critique of positionality that is undertaken here. Contra the xenophobia that Goh believes to be constitutive of our political moment, à is meant to embody a nomadic principle of dislocation, one that moves to(wards) ever more openness and otherness. Roaming far and wide, à thus also eludes the central position it is consistently afforded throughout the essay, which makes for a startling paradox. Yet the author is attentive to this pitfall, reminding us that his aim is not to abolish positionality altogether but rather to ensure that existence loses...

THE SPECIFICITY OF THE SEMANTICS OF THE FRENCH PREPOSITION EN (SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL MEANINGS)

The article is devoted to the problem of the semantic description of the French preposition en in spatial and temporal meanings. This preposition is one of the most polysemantic. That’s why in scientific literature there is no uniform idea of semantic structure of this preposition. In this article the author tries to analyze all the theoretical ways of describing its specificity and to identify its own meaning distinct from others based on the spatial and temporal constructions constructed with the preposition en.

Некоторые подходы к изучению семантики предлога à (французский язык)

The article examines some approaches to the semantics of the French preposition à, more specifically its spatial meaning. The researches of the main French linguists which focus on the semantics of the prepositions, including the preposition à, were analysed as a theoretical basis (cognitive approach).

Region Prepositions: The View from French

AbstractThe goal of this article is to offer a formal account of region prepositions in French. We define region prepositions as prepositions that denote non-oriented locations and resist modification with measure phrases (e.g.,au nez dein#dix metres au nez de l'avion‘ten meters from (in front of) the tip of the airplane’). We show that region prepositions may involve items that include inflected markers or items involving “bare” markers (au bord de‘at the edge of’ vs.à droite de‘to the right of’). We analyze the relation between structure and semantic type to show that this distribution stems from the morpho-syntactic properties of their “internal location nouns” (e.g.,nez,bord, droite, sommet). We offer a feature-driven analysis of these prepositions that hinges on a Lexical Syntax account and can capture all of the relevant data in a unified perspective. We conclude by discussing some theoretical consequences for accounts of spatial prepositions.

Les transferts positifs et négatifs entre le tchèque et le français : le cas des prépositions françaises sur et sous

This paper examines the positive and negative transfer between Czech and French, with a specific focus placed on the French prepositions sur and sous and their Czech counterparts. First, we present selected constructions and formulate a few hypotheses concerning their acquisition. Subsequently we discuss the results of a language survey, including an experimental task focused on the use of the two prepositions, which was conducted among Czech university students of French in the spring of 2019. Finally, we analyse and highlight some interesting details and determine the positive and negative transfers between both languages in this area.

『자기 앞의 생』의 한국어 번역 고찰

La vie devant soi is the second novel published by the author, Romain Gary, under the pen name Emile Ajar. The first was a Gros-Câlin, and the third and fourth were the Pseudo and L’Angoisse du roi Salomon. Vie et Mort d’Emile Ajar, which he left as a historic note, when he pulled his pistol at the age of 66 in 1980, revealed that Romain Gary himself was Emile Ajar. BR La vie devant soi has been translated many times in Korea. According to our research, there are now 27 Korean translations of this work. Given that it’s a relatively long story, and given that Korean readers aren’t the only ones who know their names (for example, L’Etranger in Camus or Petit Prince in Saint-Exupéry), the fact that there are 27 translations is very significant. As you can see, this work has impressed many Korean readers. BR In the translation of this work, it is our idea that it is necessary to carefully consider these unique features. In particular, it is an effort to convey the ‘otherness’ revealed through linguistic usage, unique habits, and the strange feelings, and to convey the hopeful color and the calm daily impression to the readers as much as possible without adding or subtracting to the reader. It is said that it will be the most important criterion for evaluating the translation of this work.BR In this regard, we first need to look carefully at the title of this work. The title of the French title La vie devant soi is ‘life’, that is, ‘life going forward’. And most of the Korean translations of this work are literally titled “La vie devant soi (Life Before Yourself)” by translating the original French phrases. In fact, the expression ‘live before self’ does not exactly fit the Korean language, and it has the disadvantage that it can distort the meaning of the original title. If you translate this phrase like this while translating general text, it may be an obvious “error”. However, it is our opinion that the choice of these translations may be appropriate in relation to the title of the work and in conveying the color tone of the work described above.BR The title of this work needs to be interpreted from the perspective of ‘front’ and ‘back’ rather than simply the temporal nuances of ‘past’ and ‘future’, and in this regard our translations are common. It is our idea that the translation used in our mind, the translation of ‘the life before us’ that takes advantage of the French preposition ‘devant’, is appropriate.

Anaphora Resolution and Orphan Prepositions in French

According to Zribi-Hertz (1984), French orphan prepositions are only grammatical if the complement is non-human ( Cette valise, je voyage toujours avec ). While corpus data for avec and sans show that this generalization holds as a strong tendency in novels, orphan prepositions are missing in non-fiction texts because non-human referents are expressed as overt disjunctive pronouns ( Ses biens furent confisques, et l’usine avec eux ). The difference between the two text types can be accounted for without postulating two grammars. In both text types the same grammatical constraints are at work and the difference between the text types results from a strive towards efficiency in anaphora resolution.

Acquisition of French (L3) Prepositions by Iranian Learners of English

Acquisition of French (L3) Prepositions by Iranian Learners of English

Conceptualizations of time in French depuis ‘since, for’ constructions

AbstractThe two most common constructions with the French preposition depuis ‘since, for’ represent alternate temporal conceptualizations of events. The temporal point (tp) construction situates events with respect to a starting point in the past from which mental scanning tracks to the present. The temporal duration (td) construction situates events by reference to their duration. Adoption of the Cognitive Grammar framework leads to the insight that all other depuis constructions are variations of the tp construction, while the td construction is distinct in its construal of situations. This corpus study gives an account of how the td construction developed as an extension of the tp construction starting in the fourteenth century, as well as a pragmatic analysis of the contexts that favor use of the td construction in modern French. The findings show that the td construction is nearly always used to emphasize duration for some communicative purpose.

The Semantic Structure and Grammaticalization of the French Preposition de

The Semantic Structure and Grammaticalization of the French Preposition de

Three basic prepositions in French and in English : a comparison

The spatial uses of the French prepositions à, dans and sur may be translated by either at, in, on or to, into, onto, depending on whether the landmark introduces the actual or the prospective position of the target. All static spatial French prepositions can bring in the actual position of the target as well as its prospective position. Instead of offering two meanings for these prepositions, I propose a general principle of anticipation that applies to the definition of these prepositions when the target is prospective. An adaptation of this principle applies to the spatial static English prepositions, with the exception of at, in and on. The prepositions into and onto are interpreted as compound words that elaborate the meaning of to. The prepositions dans and in mainly convey a relation of containment involving material entities. Such geographic entities as cities and countries, however, introduced by the French preposition of localization à, are preceded by in in English. This may be explained because the functions of localization and containment share certain properties : containers are ideal landmarks and some geographic entities have well-defined boundaries in which a target may be included.

Claude Vandeloise on proximity or the missing piece of a final triptych

Once recalled the close ties Claude Vandeloise had with Corela, this introduction focuses on the unpublished work the author dedicated to the expression of proximity in French and in English. This work is put in relation with two other contributions, one on the genesis of spatial adpositions and the other one on the relations between control and localization in the semantics of basic prepositions in French and in English. These three papers, probably written between 2005 and 2007, build up an outstanding collection bringing to the fore the depth of Claude Vandeloise’s analysis. They also show how the theoretical framework he set up to account for the semantics of spatial markers is continuously questioned in the light of the facts provided by the diachronic, cross-linguistic or acquisitional studies. Once collected, these three papers represent Claude Vandeloise’s scientific testament and the completion of his work.

Inside in French

AbstractThis article concerns five French prepositions that mark an inclusion relation and are ordinarily considered to be synonyms ofdans‘in’. The first is a simple preposition:parmi‘among’. The other four are complex prepositions built from nouns of internal location (au centre de‘at the centre of’,au milieu de‘in the middle of’) and from names of body parts (au cœur de‘at the heart of’ andau sein dewhose word-for-word translation is ‘at the breast/bosom of’ but stands for ‘within’ ‘in’ or ‘among’ depending on the context). We will examine them from two different, yet complementary points of view. As part of a statistical approach, we use an association measure to determine the distributional trends of each preposition. In addition, we explore in greater detail the semantic mechanisms brought into play using the theoretical framework of Cognitive Grammar. This double analysis leads us to demonstrate that these prepositions are far from synonymous and involve very different types of constraints.

French orphan prepositions revisited

AbstractIn this article, I argue, contra Cervoni (1991), Olivier (2007) and others, that French