Contenu du sommaire : Les primitifs sémantiques, sous la direction de Bert Peeters

« Searching for semantic primitives (1965-1992) » This paper provides a state of the art report on the search for semantic primitives as carried out over the last 28 years. It is argued that the failure of the philosophical speculation triggered by the reflections of the great 17th century thinkers (Leibniz, Descartes, Pascal, Arnauld) is not irreversible : the challenge lies in replacing the speculation with a linguistic approach based on the observation of the most diverse languages in the world.

This paper examines in full detail all syntactic environments in which the Modern French aspectual verbs commencer and se mettre à are currently used. It also investigates the precise semantic differences between both verbs. Definitions are couched in semantic primitives. The author attempts to take a stand with respect to all observations made by others on these verbs over the last thirty years. Most examples are drawn from a corpus of weekly magazines and/or 20th century novels.

« Verba dicendi in the newspaper press » Following the example set by A. Wierzbicka's English speech act verbs : A semantic dictionary (1988), the author explores on a more modest scale the area of French speech act verbs. Having identified, within a corpus of texts belonging to the newspaper press, the ten most frequent « verba dicendi », she sets out to provide a precise and rigorous definition for each, and she deals with the various constraints which rule their use by journalists.

« The semantics of negation in French » This paper shows how the use of a metalanguage consisting of primitives allows one to clarify some of the problems raised by negation in French. The latter is envisaged not from a static point of view, but, within the psychomecanic tradition, as a cinetism moving from more to less, from plus to minus. The author deals first with fuzziness in negation as achieved by the use of hedges, then looks at the « redundant » ne wich occasionally occurs in the language.

« Conversational strategies in French and in English : a matter of conventions or the reflexion of deep cultural divergences ? » The inspiration for this paper was found in A. Wierzbicka's Cross-cultural pragmatics (1991). The author describes contrastively some of the rules which underly conversation in French and in Australian English. The transcription of authentic recordings shows how each system works in isolation and what kind of conflicts emerge when both systems meet (in the case of native speakers or French using their own conversational strategies when expressing themselves in English). It is claimed that the observed differences reflect divergent cultural norms. underly conversation in French and in Australian English. The transcription of authentic recordings shows how each system works in isolation and what kind of conflicts emerge when both systems meet (in the case of native speakers or French using their own conversational strategies when expressing themselves in English). It is claimed that the observed differences reflect divergent cultural norms.

« The universal of grammar » This paper explores the area of universal grammar, a concept which, in the context of natural semantics, is to be understood as the set of grammatical universels and other strategies allowed as part of the natural semantic metalanguage. It is very much a tentative paper with a large number of proposals and observations which await further exploration.