Les adjectifs dérivés de noms de parties du corps dans les textes médicaux

Among the large category of Adjectives, we selected an interesting subset of denominal adjectives issued from nouns referring to parts and regions of the human body — external parts as well as internal organs — called "Noms de parties du corps" (Npc). These adjectives are so massively used in medical discourse that they could be taken as a lexical parameter for this register identification They are generally used with an attributive function [SN [N Apc]], but the head noun they modify may belong to different categories. It can be nouns with a referential content (parts of the body or material objets) but also nouns most generally derived from verbs or adjectives, representing states, actions or processes ("predicative nouns"). According to the category of the head noun, the relation expressed by the Apc can be interpreted in different ways: as a part-whole relation when the head noun denotes itself a body part, as a locative relation with nouns referring to physical objets of all sorts, but when it is coupled with a predicative noun, the adjective Ape is to be taken exactly as the nominal base (the noun from which it derives) would be, that is it has to be considered as an argument within the verbal structure defined by an agentive verb such as faire, pratiquer, provoquer (to make, to cause) or by a stative verb such as avoir (to have), présenter, manifester (to exhibit).