Les syntagmes prépositionnels en «en N» détachés en tête de phrase référant à des domaines d'activité

Summary Among the least integrated adverbials, one can find, at the front of the clauses, detached adverbials which delimit frames: these frames gather the following information in sets semantically homogeneous relating to a criterion specified by these adverbials (M. Charolles: 1997). These criteria are extremely various: they can be spatial criteria («Aux Etats-Unis, ...»), temporal criteria («Durant l’année 1989, ...»), criteria of activity («En biologie, ...»), etc.

This paper explores only one set of these frames: the frames of activity (which we will call “praxeological frames”). In addition, among the adverbials which can introduce frames of activity, we will only examine the prepositional phrases detached at the front of the clauses, introduced by the preposition “en” immediately followed by a noun (“En biologie”, “En biologie cellulaire”, ...). In particular, we will try to determine the features of the nouns which can appear just after the preposition “en” in this type of frame of activity.