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Article published In: Les prépositions complexes dans les langues romanes
Edited by Benjamin Fagard, José Pinto De Lima and Dejan Stosic
[Revue Romane 54:1] 2019
► pp. 39–61

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En voie de

Du trajet spatial à l’aspect

 | Université d’Anvers, GaP/C-APP

Article language: French

Published online: 22 July 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rro.00015.dem
Abstract
This contribution presents a comparison of the French prepositional expressions en voie de on the one hand and en route / en chemin (pour) on the other. We aim to show that être en route and être en chemin can be used as complex predicates resulting from a lexicalisation process, whereas être en voie de has been transformed into a marker of grammatical aspect as a consequence of a grammaticalization process. We then propose that the different evolution of both expressions can be explained by the fact that voie had already in Old French a more abstract meaning than chemin and route, which allowed it to designate a series of actions in direction of an objective. Finally, we propose to explain the emergence of en voie de + deverbal noun / infinitive as an aspectual marker by noticing that it was created at the moment French developed other analytic aspectual expressions in accordance with an abstract constructional pattern ‘expression/verb of movement + infinitive’.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Des emplois spatiaux au prédicat complexe : route et chemin vs. voie
  • 2.‘En voie de + N déverbal/infinitif’ : une construction aspectuelle ?
  • 3.L’évolution de en voie de
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Remarques
  • Bibliographie
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