| Titre | Prochain/dernier et compagnie. Les adjectifs « déictiques » à l'épreuve de l'espace ou comment circuler dans le temps, l'espace, le texte | |
|---|---|---|
| Auteur | Anne-Marie Berthonneau | |
 |
Revue | Langue française |
| Numéro | no 136, décembre 2002 L'adjectif sans qualité(s) sous la direction de Catherine Schnedecker | |
| Page | 104-125 | |
| Résumé anglais |
On the French "deictic" adjectives prochain and dernier or How to find one's way through time, space and texts This paper analyzes the referential functions of prochain/dernier in their temporal and spatial uses, on the basis of their syntactic properties as adjectives (among which, naturally, their position with respect to the noun). It also covers the relations between prochain and suivant with nouns denoting various kinds of material entities, which may or may not be considered as places. Prochain and dernier do not figure prominently in the littérature on adjectives, because of their non prototypical status. With respect to time, there is a general consensus assuming that they are "deictic", at least when they follow the noun (e.g. la semaine dernière/prochaine), despite the well known fact that dernier is an ordinal adjective. They contrast with (précédent /suivant) which establish reference on the basis of a given reference time (e.g. à Noël ... la semaine précédente/ suivante) rather than on the basis of speech time. Though it is often assumed that time should be analyzed as a transposition of space, the temporal behaviour of prochain and dernier turns out not to be precisely parallel to their spatial uses. Dernier no longer forms a pair with prochain (e.g. Je descends à la station prochaine /*dernière); it functions strictly as an ordinal adjective. Furthermore, suivant is in competition with prochain (e.g. Je descends à la station prochaine/à la prochaine station/à la station suivante), though the two adjectives produce clearly distinct references with respect to time (e.g. la semaine prochaine Ф la semaine suivante). Contrasting the behaviour of these adjectives with respect to time and space is important because it reveals the asymmetry between prochain and dernier, which is hidden if one only considers the temporal uses. It allows one to explain (i) how prochain and dernier come together to form a contrasting pair in their temporal uses, despite the fact that dernier is not an indexical; (ii) why suivant can provide the same referent as prochain with names of material entities, despite the fact that the meanings of the two are radically different. At the end of this journey through months and weeks, stations and times, women, pages and chapters, it will turn out that the differences between space and time are less important than might initially appear, at least if one takes into account a crucial property of temporal entities, namely their lack of salience. Source : Éditeur (via Persée) |
|
| Article en ligne | http://www.persee.fr/doc/lfr_0023-8368_2002_num_136_1_6475 |
