Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T02:59:18.491Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The emergence of Noun + Noun constructions with a regressive order in contemporary French?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2012

RUDY LOOCK
RUDY LOOCK*
Affiliation:
Université Lille Nord de France and CNRS UMR Savoirs, Textes, Langage
*
Address for correspondence: Université Charles de Gaulle Lille III and CNRS UMR 8163 Savoirs Textes, Langage, B.P. 60149, 59653 Villeneuve d'Ascq cedex, FRANCE e-mail: rudy.loock@univ-lille3.fr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper investigates the emergence of atypical noun+noun structures exhibiting regressive order (head-final or NN) in contemporary French such as la grève attitude (‘the strike attitude’) or la Marcelle solidarité (‘the Marcelle solidarity’). Using attested examples drawn from contemporary media, the aim of the paper is to provide a detailed description and history of these data, as well as to study its productivity through the emergence of patterns such as la N attitude or la N Academy/Académie. Using traditional tests, the paper also investigates the morphological versus syntactic nature of the construction and concludes in favour of the former.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , July 2013 , pp. 259 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Dany Amiot, Maarten Lemmens, and Fayssal Tayalati for their useful remarks and suggestions on a previous draft of this article. I am also very grateful to the four anonymous reviewers of JFLS, as well as to Aidan Coveney, for comments that contributed to major improvements of the article. Any remaining errors are, naturally, my own. Finally, thanks are due to Kathleen M. O'Connor for proof-reading and helpful comments.

References

REFERENCES

Abeillé, A. and Godard, D. (2000). French word order and lexical weight. In: Borsley, R. (ed.), The Nature and Function of Syntactic Categories; Syntax and Semantics, 32: 325–360. New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, V. (1973). An Introduction to Modern English Word-Formation. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Amiot, D. and Dal, G. (2008). Composition néoclassique en français et ordre des constituants. In: Amiot, D. (ed.), La composition dans une perspective typologique. Arras: Artois Presses Université, pp. 89–113.Google Scholar
Arnaud, P. J. L. (2008). Café mémoire, ingénieur béton: la néologie compositionnelle du français, morphologie, syntaxe ou calque ? Paper presented at the XIIIth Euralex International Congress, July 2008. Available at: http://perso.univ-lyon2.fr/~arnaud/communications/Arnaud_CINEO_08.pdfGoogle Scholar
Bauer, L. (1983). English Word-formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, R. A. and Slobin, D. I. (1994). Relating Events in Narrative: A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study. Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Bernet, C., Rézeau, P. and Artarit, J. (2008). On va le dire comme ça: Dictionnaire des expressions quotidiennes. Paris: Balland.Google Scholar
Corbin, D. (1992). Hypothèses sur les frontières de la composition nominale. Cahiers de Grammaire, 17: 26–55.Google Scholar
Dal, G. (2003). Productivité morphologique: définitions et notions connexes. Langue Française, 140: 3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damourette, J. and Pichon, E. (1911–1930). Des mots à la pensée (Essai de grammaire de la langue française). Paris: D'Artrey.Google Scholar
Fradin, B. (1999). Syntaxe et morphologie. Histoire Epistémologie Langage, 21: 27–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giegerich, H. J. (2010). Compounding and Lexicalism. In: Lieber, R. and Stekauer, P. (eds), Handbook of Compounding. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 178–200.Google Scholar
Giegerich, H. J. (2004). Compound or Phrase? English Noun-plus-Noun Constructions and the Stress Criterion. English Language and Linguistics, 8: 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jamet, D. (2006). Les suites N2s N1: de la nature qualitative du déterminant N2? Cycnos, 23.1. Available at: http://revel.unice.fr/cycnos/document.html?id=288Google Scholar
Loock, R. (2009). L’ ‘antéposition attitude’ ou comment enseigner ce qui sera peut-être un jour grammatical. In: Bertrand, O. et Schaffner, I. (eds), Quel français enseigner? La question de la norme dans l'enseignement/apprentissage. Paris: Editions de l'Ecole Polytechnique, pp. 311–320.Google Scholar
Manguin, J-L. (2004). L'évolution en français de l'adjectif épithète vers la postposition: réalité syntaxique ou trompe-l'œil lexical? In: Purnelle, G., Fairon, C., and Dister, A., (eds), Le poids des mots vol. 2 (Actes des 7èmes Journées internationales d'Analyse statistique des Données Textuelles). Louvain: Presses Universitaires de Louvain, pp. 753–763.Google Scholar
Marchello-Nizia, C. (2006). Grammaticalisation et changement linguistique. Bruxelles: De Boek.Google Scholar
Noailly, M. (1990). Le substantif épithète. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Noailly, M. (1999). L'adjectif en français. Gap / Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
Plag, I. (2005). Productivity. In: Brown, K. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, second edition, Vol. 10. Oxford: Elsevier, pp. 121–128.Google Scholar
Ten Hacken, P. (1994). Defining Morphology: a Principled Approach to Determining the Boundaries of Compounding, Derivation, and Inflection. Hildesheim: Olms.Google Scholar
Thuilier, J., Fox, G. and Crabbé, B. (2010). Fréquence, longueur et préférences lexicales dans le choix de la position de l'adjectif épithète en français. In: Neveu, F., Muni, V. Toke, Durand, J., Klingler, T., Mondada, L., et Prévost, S. (eds), Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française - CMLF 2010. Paris: Institut de Linguistique Française, pp. 2197–2110.Google Scholar
Villoing, F. (2003). Les mots composés VN du français: arguments en faveur d'une construction morphologique. Cahiers de grammaire, 28, ‘Morphologie et lexique’: 183–196.Google Scholar
Wilmet, M. (1981). La place de l'épithète qualificative en français contemporain: étude grammaticale et stylistique. Revue de linguistique romane, 45: 17–73.Google Scholar
Zwicky, A. M. (1992). Some choices in the theory of morphology. In: Levine, R. D. (ed.), Formal Grammar: Theory and Implementation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 327–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar