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Om Damourette och Pichons franska "nationalgrammatik" Des mots à la pensée. Essai de grammaire de la langue française (1911-1940).

Summary in English at the end of the chapter.

Résumé en français à la fin du chapitre.

In this article, we examine nominal modal auxiliary phrases (NMAPs) in French. More specifically, we study NMAPs where the nominal base consists of the nouns obligation (‘obligation’), nécessité (‘necessity’) and probabilité (‘probability’). At first glance, these appear to correspond to the deontic interpretation of “obligation”, the alethic interpretation of “necessity”, and the epistemic interpretation of “high probability” associated with the modal verb devoir. We demonstrate that, from a syntactic perspective, these NMAPs can be introduced by the verbs avoir (‘to have’), être (‘to be’), se trouver (‘to find oneself’), se voir (‘to see oneself/be/’), and /se/ mettre (‘to put/set /oneself/’), with the exception of probability constructions with the noun probabilité, which can only be introduced by the verb avoir. From a semantic perspective, we show that the noun in “deontic” NMAPs is not exclusively obligation, but often nécessité as well. Similarly, while the noun in “alethic” NMAPs is most frequently nécessité, the noun obligation is not entirely excluded. Regarding NMAPs involving probabilité, the modal interpretation is almost always “alethic possibility” and not the “epistemic” interpretation of “high probability.”

Dans cet article, nous étudions des locutions auxiliaires à base nominale (LAMN). Plus précisément, nous étudions les LAMN dont la base nominale est constituée des substantifs obligation, nécessité et probabilité et qui semblent, à première vue, correspondre aux interprétations déontique d’« obligation », aléthique de « nécessité » et épistémique de « haute probabilité » du verbe modal devoir. Nous montrons que, du point de vue syntaxique, ces LAMN peuvent être introduites par les verbes avoir, être, se trouver, se voir et /se/ mettre, sauf pour les constructions en probabilité qui ne peuvent être introduites que par le verbe avoir, et que, du point de vue sémantique, le substantif des LAMN « déontiques » n’est pas seulement obligation, mais souvent aussi nécessité et que, si le substantif des LAMN « aléthiques » est le plus souvent nécessité, le substantif obligation n’est pas entièrement exclu. Pour ce qui est des LAMN en probabilité, l’interprétation modale est presque toujours la « possibilité aléthique », et non l’interprétation « épistémique » de « haute probabilité ».

Three types of previously unstudied axiological conditional constructions are investigated. The first type is the potential construction with Quantifiers of Factual Proximity (QPF): Om du säger ett ord tillQPF slår jag dig på käften ('If you say one more word, I will punch you in the face'). The second type is the counterfactual construction with QPF: Om han tagit ett steg till, hade han varit död ('If he had taken one more step, he would have been dead'). The third type is the norm-breaking potential construction with the Compound conditional and the Pluperfect: Det skulle ha betytt allt om jag hade fått dom ('It would mean [lit. would have meant] everything if I got [lit. had got] them'). The different speech acts that the constructions perform are also studied: the construction types carry out expressive speech acts and some other speech acts as "threats" and "promises". From a typological perspective, it will be contended that the first and the second construction types are universal, while the third is language-specific.

Villkorskonstruktioner och axiologi i svenska, romanska språk och japanska.

Detta är ett kapitel om de franska modalverben devoir och pouvoir i den fria nätencyclopedien Encyclopédie Grammaticale du Français. Den ger en kritisk forskningsöversikt av dessa två modalverb.

This chapter, written in French, gives a critical research survey of the French modal verbs devoir and pouvoir.

To pay homage to the memory of Michael Herslund we will examine the hypothesis that the French modal verb devoir + Infinitive can be seen as an evidential future periphrasis from a typological perspective in uses such as La pluie doit s’abattre sur une bonne partie du pays (‘The rain will pour down on a good part of the country’). More specifically, we will scrutinize the cases where devoir is in the Present, the inflectional Future and the Conditional. On the basis of recent authentic material it will be contended that evidentiality in these cases is reportive.

Quantifiers of Factual Proximity (QFPs) are subconstructions (e.g. Spanish un paso más and French un pas de plus) of conditional constructions, as in Un paso más y me mataba/habría matado (‘One more step, and he would have killed me’). Indicating the proximity of realization of hypothetical eventualities or instants in the protasis, they have a propensity for co-occurring with axiologically marked eventualities (matar ‘kill’) in the apodosis, irrespective of its TAM-morphology (mataba, Imperfect Indicative ‘killed’, habría matado, Compound Conditional ‘would have killed’). Here we elaborate the conceptualization of QFPs for counterfactual conditionals in Romance languages with special emphasis on Spanish. The theoretical framework is Construction Grammar, more specifically Cognitive Grammar (Langacker 1987, 2008).