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Article published In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics
Vol. 30:1 (2025) ► pp.1–23

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Syntactic position of contrast markers in different registers of French

ORCiD logo with link | Fund for Scientific Research (F.R.S.-FNRS) | UCLouvain
ORCiD logo with link | KU Leuven
Published online: 16 January 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.22082.bry
Abstract
This paper presents a quantitative corpus analysis of three syntactically mobile contrast markers in different registers of French: contrastive adverbs, emphatic pronouns, and emphatic pronouns introduced by quant à “as for”. We show that the preferred syntactic position of the three markers is influenced by their form and discourse function, but that the degree of this influence varies across registers. In informal written and spoken French, form and discourse function have a greater impact on syntactic position than in formal written French, where the standard word order subject + verb + other clause elements is favored, and non-neutral (inter)subjective peripheries are avoided. Hence, our analysis provides evidence for the idea that informal written and spoken French are (becoming) more discourse-configurational.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Syntactic mobility of French contrast markers
    • 2.1Contrastive adverbs
    • 2.2Emphatic pronouns
    • 2.3Emphatic pronouns introduced by quant à
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Corpora
    • 3.2Data extraction
    • 3.3Classification of syntactic positions
  • 4.Results: Different contrast markers, different preferred positions
    • 4.1Contrastive adverbs
    • 4.2Emphatic pronouns
    • 4.3Emphatic pronouns introduced by quant à
  • 5.Discussion: Impact of register
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (49)
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