This thesis, entitled 'Towards a Meaning-Text Unification Grammar of
French: Verbal tense in the semantics-syntax interface', has two main
objectives. First, we aim at describing French verbal inflection, more
particularly tense in the semantics-syntax interface. Second, we want to
develop the Meaning-Text unification grammar (MTUG) formalism and test its
adequacy for language description.
To achieve our first goal, we propose a lexicography-inspired methodology
for the study of grammatical signs. This methodology is centered on the
linguistic sign as a whole, not only on one of its components (signified,
signifier or syntactics).
At the descriptive level, our main thesis is that French has not only one,
but two inflectional categories of tense that complement each other:
1) The category of shifting (in French, 'décalage'), which comprises two
grammemes that locate a temporal reference point in relation with the time
of speech:
- The grammeme NON-SHIFTED indicates that the reference point is either
'now' or a future point in time. Its signifier is null.
- The grammeme SHIFTED indicates that the reference point is in the past.
It is expressed by the suffix –AI–.
2) The category of tense proper, which comprises three grammemes that
situate facts in relation with this reference point:
- The grammeme SIMULTANEOUS means that the fact denoted by the verb is
simultaneous to the reference point. Its signifier is null.
- The deep grammeme ANTERIOR indicates that the fact is before the
reference point. It is expressed by the auxiliary AVOIR (or ÊTRE). In
literary speech, it is expressed jointly with the grammeme NON-SHIFTED by
the simple past suffix.
- The grammeme POSTERIOR indicates that the fact is after the reference
point. It is expressed by the suffix –R–.
At the formal level, our main contributions to the MTUG formalism are the
representation of structures in terms of objects and functions, as well as
the modeling of semantic decompositions. The formalization of our French
inflection model turns out to be an interesting way of testing MTUG's
adequacy, since this phenomenon involves signs of different natures. It
also provides a good opportunity to observe the articulation of the
grammar's modules.
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