Contenu du sommaire : Enonciation et pragmatique : approche diachronique, sous la direction de Dominique Lagorgette, Evelyne Oppermann-Marsaux et Amalia Rodriguez Somolinos

Old French : Some specifies about an enunaation in praesentia. Meant as an introduction to research on enunciation (according to E. Benveniste) in the Middle Ages, this article underlines the linguistic impact of the orality share implied by the composition or the transmission of the earliest vernacular texts. Those texts are sometimes composed, often dictated by their author to a scribe, and, in ail cases, they are performed by means of a recitation or read aloud to an audience unable to access written documents. A certain number of features, familiar to Romanists, are linked to this mode of transmission, such as double sets of shifters in praesentia (some referring to the act of performance, others coalescing the listeners' time and space with those of the narrated content), the semantic evolution of or, the use of the present as an unmarked tense in a narrative context, or the sudden tense switching. This article also shows how such features, initially of a linguistic nature, have finally contributed to the building up of the codification of certain literary genres, epic songs (chansons de geste) or, more broadly, fictions.

The Marking of Reportee Discourse in Medieval French Manuscripts. This article studies how reported speech is marked in medieval texts both visually for the reader of manuscripts and orally for the listener (medieval texts being sung, recited or in any case read aloud). It examines morpho-syntactic, discursive and lexical marking as well as prosody and it pays particular attention to manuscript punctuation, a field that is still very much understudied at the moment. The study takes into account the type of text envisaged (e.g. verse or prose, chanson de geste versus romance, etc.) and their period (from 1 2th to 1 5th century).

From textual level to enundative level in the grammaticalization process : the function of context. This paper analyses the function of linguistic contexts in the grammaticalization process. Within the theoretical framework of the "evolution in three levels" (propositional level, textual level, pragmatic level), we underline the importance and the specificity of thematic constructions from a diachronic point of view. Certain expressions evolve first from linked adverbial to a thematic function, then to a topic function. This is exemplified by the study of two samples : the evolution of topic markers like quant a, en ce qui concerne, and the evolution ofthe su bord inator dans la mesure ou.

Voire, truth modalisation and reinforcement of an assertion (14th-16th centuries). This article gives a semantic and argumentative description of voire in Middle French, as well as in 1 6th century French. Voire is an epistemic modality marking truth and the reinforcement of an assertion. That is the main semantic value ofthe marker throughout its different uses. Voire modalizes a previous assertion, reinforcing its certainty and marking an agreement with a point of view expressed by the addressee or by the speaker himself. In certain contexts, the marker can also express disagreement or doubt. The intrasentential use, strongly assertive, becomes characteristic of this period. Intrasentential voire can point backwards. It confirms then a previous discourse produced by the speaker himself. When it points forwards, voire asserts the truth and reinforces the assertion of a discourse element that follows. It underlines thus a progression of intensity.

The origins of the presentative form « voici/voilà » and its evolution until the end ofthe 16th century. This paper deals with the different variants ofthe presentative form voici/voila in Medieval French (mainly : ve(e)z cilla, veci/vela, voici/voila) and examines how their uses changed between the I Ith century and the end ofthe I6th century. Describing the decrease of ve(e)z ci and the rise ofthe modem variants voici/voila, as well as the growing importance of the variants including the adverb la, it stresses the relationship that may be established between these morphosyntactical changes and the evolution ofthe enunciative properties of the presentative form.

Elements for the diachronic study of French honorifics : monsieur, monseigneur, milord. This article focuses on the diachronic study ofthe French series of honorifics composed by the possessive adjective and a title (as in monseigneur). It first questions the morphological regularity ofthe whole series (comparing the masculine forms with the feminine nouns madame and mademoiselle) and their syntactical properties, in particular regarding the adjunction of articles (le monsieur I *la madame). It then concentrates on the masculine series (monsieur, monseigneur and milord) in order to underline how enunciative and pragmatic parameters seem to have govemed its development during the middle ages : our hypothsesis is that the early possibility for those titles of respect (with the article) to show axiological judgements is linked to their use within the curial style and the anaphorical article ledit.

The meanings of comme : a historical perspective (14th-16th centuries). Among function words which can have many meanings depending on the context, comme is one ofthe most polysemie in Modem French, even when it is only studied in its subordinate role in complex sentences. Imbs considered that it was unequalled in the variety of its different uses. The study of comme from a diachronic point of view has been facilitated by the computerization of huge corpuses, which allow a better understanding of its polysemy. It is thus possible to discover the stages by which the word has passed and to identify apparently heterogeneous meanings, which are actually coherent, when taking their progressive construction into consideration.