L’antéposition des compléments dans le français contemporain

In modern French, Noun Groups which fulfill a function of non prepositional complements (ie. direct objects) are traditionnally said to have a strictly fixed position after the verb, in contrast with other types of complements which have a freer distribution. Using data mostly drawn from spoken language corpora, we show that, contrary to commun assumptions, non prepositional complements are likely to be placed before the verb. In order to give a precise account, it appears necessary to make a distinction between two different types of pre-verbal complements. Such a distinction is made through the theoretical frame of macro-syntax.