Contenu du sommaire : Les démonstratifs : théorie linguistique et textes littéraires, sous la direction de Marie-Noëlle Gary-Prieur et Martine Léonard

Demonstratives as textual and linguistic entities. The introductory paper draws the main lines of this special issue. In the first part, M. Léonard explains how and why some linguistics and literature specialists decided to focus their attentions on demonstratives, in a common work that gives no priority to the linguistic system over textual realisations. In the second part, M-N. Gary-Prieur proposes a linguistic description of the way demonstratives work, mainly based on the observation of some of their textual uses.

From the meaning of Demonstratives to the creation of discourse worlds. Gary-Prieur and Noailly (1996) argue that some uses of demonstrative noun phrases in literary texts cannot be analysed as anaphoric, since they have no antecedents, nor as deictic, since the indexical ground, the /, here and now of the speaker / writer, is no longer available. Most of these uses signal that the referent is to be seen as part of the universe of a particular character. In my contribution, I argue they are manifestations of the basic token-reflexive meaning of the demonstratives, which demands not only that a referent be identified, but also that a context be set up, linked to the occurrence of the demonstrative. As such, these demonstratives always signal the integration of new information into the discourse : the introduction of a new referent, a change of thematic status, a change of universe, etc., and are deictic expressions according to the definition of deixis proposed a.o. by Bosch (1983).

Anaphoric celui-ci as a mentional NP. In its anaphoric uses, celui-ci is not an anaphoric nominal, as many authors have observed. Nevertheless, the claim that celui-ci is a NP without a noun (and not a true pronoun) allows to see it as a member of a natural class including NPs like le premier, le dernier, ce dernier. . . We propose to label these NPs 'mentional NPs'. Basically, we define mentional NPs as NPs associated with the discourse referent of a previous mention identified by its relative position. This paper considers then the role of celui-ci in reference chains of some literary texts, showing that celui-ci behaves as a 'counter-topic' : it is used for an accessible discourse referent, preserving the status of another discourse referent as the main topic of the discourse.

The cataphoric value of demonstratives. This article deals with some noun phrases built on a [demonstrative / noun / relative clause] structure. Such phrases require indeed two different analyses, whether they refer to a general or a specific object. In both cases though, these phrases always display a reader or listener-oriented discourse.

Demonstratives and the enunciative status of fictional narratives : the example of novel openings Demonstratives in the first sentences of novels are often considered as non-sequential sequence-signals. But, since opening demonstratives aim at creating an impression of enunciative continuity more than an illusion of referential continuity, one has to describe them first as markers of empathy in a fictitious frame. Then, though their grammatical statuses can be very diverse, opening demonstratives can all be studied in the "deictic-shift" model. We examine here the relevance and limits of such a model, and focus on two extreme cases : what if the deictic center cannot be identified ? what if the different empathy markers seem contradictory ? Opening sentences give us indeed the best opportunity to study the function of demonstratives as empathy markers, to describe the inferential work they require and to understand their being thought as highly "literary".

Balzacian demonstrative determiner : character and Time. From the corpus of demonstrative noun phrases (ex. this woman) by which the characters of La Duchesse de Langeais (a novel by Balzac dating 1834) are designated, we show that the demonstrative determiner marks the character's transformation in time and, thanks to its reclassifying value, allows to express both permanence and reincarnation. In a third-person narrative, the subjectivity (which the demonstrative determiner displays) raises a problem of interpretation and the present time, as a fictive object represented, is to be decoded.

"This coastline of Arguenon's bay" : Demonstratives text-tested. The aim of this paper is to study exhaustively one of the textual uses of the demonstrative adjective, given in the following quotation from Michel Tournier's Les Météores : "Le soleil s'inclinait déjà derrière la colline où les innocents de Sainte-Brigitte cueillaient des asters (...). Cette côte de la baie de l'Arguenon, orientée à l'est, ne reçoit le vent marin que des terres...". The analysis of this example gives interesting results on four points : (i) all types of uses of the demonstrative adjective have not yet been pointed out ; (ii) the theoretical explanation of some peculiar demonstratives, also called "literary demonstratives", implies an identification of the type of use ; (iii) this identification is not permitted by the sole effects produced by the demonstrative ; (iv) it implies a study of the correspondences between spatial uses and textual uses.

Demonstrative noun-phrases in La Fontaine's Fables. This study brings to light a set of writing habits related to the use of demonstrative noun phrases in La Fontaine's poetry and tries to account for their major stylistic effects. A close observation of word selection in such phrases gives a good opportunity to describe, in a literary text, the (re)categorisation of referents in and through discourse. Marie José Beguelin : Demonstrative noun-phrases in La Fontaine's Fables. This study brings to light a set of writing habits related to the use of demonstrative noun phrases in La Fontaine's poetry and tries to account for their major stylistic effects. A close observation of word selection in such phrases gives a good opportunity to describe, in a literary text, the (re)categorisation of referents in and through discourse.

Some specific uses of demonstratives in Céline's texts. This article studies three different uses of the demonstrative in two novels by Louis-Ferdinand Céline. It argues that, in the three cases, the demonstrative cannot be reduced to its usual anaphoric and deictic values. First, I demonstrate that in the context of what one critic has described as a "deixis imitative" (for Guignol's band), the demonstrative has an exclamatory value. Secondly, I analyse the demonstrative with the "nom de qualité » , showing that in a text which is full of insults (like in the war novel Casse-pipe), the demonstrative and the definite are interchangeable. Thirdly, I examine the demonstrative in an excerpt written in the « style indirect libre », where it signals a double enunciation.