Semi-auxiliaries in French from a frames and

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!"#$%&'($)$&*$"+,$-,.*"-/0,1*2#,&,1*&#"+,&-3,/2-+4*'/4$2-+,3$&/0*2-$/,5"*+5"/4$6",
Myriam!Bouveret,!University!of!Rouen-LaTTiCe!CNRS!
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Key!words!:!Constructions,!Diachrony,!Frames,!French,!Semi-Auxiliaries!
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We! observe! seven! French! semi-auxiliaries! 3"62$*7, 1&))2$*7, 62')2$*7, 52'62$*7, &))"*7, 6"-$*7,
1&$*"!and! propose! an! analysis! using! a! Frames! and! Constructions! approach.! The! data!
question! the! diachronic! evolution! of! the! semi-auxiliaries! constructions! as! a! category,!
their!collocational!patterns!and!their!grammaticalization!by!analogy.!This! grammatical!
and!lexical!motivation!is!combined! with!a!semantic!dynamicity! of!5*21$)$-8!in!terms! of!
Frames!(Goldberg!2010,!Gosselin!2012).!!
!
The! question! of! auxiliarity! has! been! discussed! in!French! lately! at! the! 17th! century!
whereas,! semi-auxiliaries! appeared! earlier! in! the! written! text! as! soon! as! the! 12th!
century.! They! spread! during! the! 14th-15th! centuries! and! increased! noticeably! during!
the! Renaissance! period! (16th-17th! century)! as! proved! in! the! data! brought! by! the!
present! study.! Nevertherless,! the! limit! between! the! notions! of! auxiliarity,! and! semi-
auxiliarity! is! not! easy! to! draw! (Lamiroy! 1999).! Besides! the! commonly! accepted!
auxiliaries! 9"!and! 0&6"! since! early! grammars! (Grévisse! and! Goose!2011),! other!
auxiliaries! such! as! 3"62$*, (‘must’,! ‘may’,! ‘have! to’), 7, 1&))2$*, (‘must’,! ‘have! to’)7, 62')2$*,
(‘want’),,52'62$*,(‘may’,!‘can’),,&))"*,(‘go’)7,6"-$*,(‘come’),,1&$*"!(‘make’)!expressing!mood,!
aspect,!temporality!or!causation!are!also!frequently!-even!if!less!commonly-!found!in!the!
texts! during! our! five! delimited! diachronic! periods,! Old! French,! Middle! French,!
Renaissance,! Classical! and! Modern! French.!! Those! verbs,! as! retrieved! ! in! our! data,! are!
attested! in! a! cline! between! a! plain! lexical! meaning! towards! a! more! grammaticalized!
meaning!(sometimes!called!!«!vector!»!verbs)!.!The!next!question!arises!then!about!the!
delimitation!of! the! number!of! semi-auxiliaries.! Does! the! set!include! for! example!verbs!
like!/2##"-/"*,:!(‘start!with’)!/"++"*,3"!(‘stop’),!5&*4$*!(‘leave’),!/2-4$-'"*,3"!(‘continue’),!
4&*3"*, :! (‘take! time! to’)! all! denoting! an! aspectual! phase,! once! combined! with! an!
infinitive! ?! The! frontier! is! therefore! vague! between! Lexicon! and! Grammar! (Gosselin!
2012)!and!the!phenomena!is!more!efficiently!described!in!diachrony!as!a!,;"*9%42%<=>,
?0&$-!![Verbe!plein!>!AUX1!>!….!AUXn!>!Affixe!]!(Hopper!&!Traugott!2003)!expressing!
the! evolution! from! Lexicon! to! Grammar,! and! as! well! Morphology.! We! present! data!
extracted!from!the!French!database!Frantext!(Base!textuelle!FRANTEXT!(INALF/ATILF-
CNRS).! Our! diachronic! data! are! retrieved! between! the! 12th! century! (@&, ?0&-+2-, 3",
A2)&-3,! Anonyme,! 1100)! and! ! nowadays.! Following! Hilpert! 2008,! 2012!we! use! this!
corpus! ressource! for! a! collostructional! analysis,! tracking! the! evolution! of! the!
collocational!patterns!of!these!semi-auxiliaries!in!French:!
!
B,!0$14+, CDE, $-3$/&4", 3"6")25#"-4+, $-, /2-+4*'/4$2-&), #"&-$-8, F&+, 40", /2-+4*'/4$2-,
/0&-8"+, +"#&-4$/&))G7, $4, /2#"+, 42, 9", '+"3, H$40, 3$11"*"-4, /2))2/&4"+I, J"H)G, $-/2#$-8,
/2))2/&4"+,-24,2-)G,+02H,40&4,+2#",/0&-8",$+,'-3"*H&G,K,40"$*,)"($/&),#"&-$-8+,1'*40"*,
$-3$/&4",02H,40",/2-+4*'/4$2-,/0&-8"+,+"#&-4$/&))GI,L,CM$)5"*4,NOPN,QNRSEI,
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