Adverbes ordinaux et introducteurs de cadre

Summary This analysis deals with ordinal adverbials, a category of items that has never been exhaustively investigated. They will be tackled from three main points of view. First, we will try to determine and highlight the properties that would permit us to connect these elements with the so-called “domain markers”. Then, in order to throw light on the particular way they structure discourse, we will also study their formal and semantic features to see whether they are actually — as is often said — used to indicate a particular position in a series. It is both possible to explain through the features of the adjectives from which they are formed, and more particularly through their partitive nature : (1) the constraints which they impose on the items they introduce, at syntactic, semantic and enunciative levels ; and (2) the particular discoursal configurations they are involved in. Finally, we will deal with the function and usefulness of these items, in both the discoursal and the cognitive fields.