Contenu du sommaire : Le classement syntactico-sémantique des verbes français

Les verbes français by Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier (1997) is a shorter copy of an electronic dictionary of French verbs. It is a thesaurus of syntactic-semantic classes, i.e. of semantics classes whose scope is defined by syntax. This work registers 25610 entries for 12310 different verbs. So as to elaborate it, the authors used the classical methods of distributional and transformational grammar. After presenting and illustrating the outline of the work, the theoretical principles it is based on are explained. Our third section describes the method underlying the classification. In the last section we display two possible way of accessing the lexical entries. This dictionary represents an outstanding lexicographical corpus with its broad coverage, the various explicit data registered (subcategorization, lexical selection, transformations, semantics, morphology, synonymy, etc.) and its coherent system to classify and code linguistic properties.

Three short studies on some verbal and nominal predicates of communication – We recall in this paper the fact that derivational properties are transformational properties as well. Hence the theoretical possibility of collecting some verbs, nouns, and adjectives into the same syntactico-semantic class of predicates. A few examples are provided of such “extended classes of predicates” : the predicates of congratulating and thanking, of manner of speaking, of predicting and of information following a demand. Thus the classification of the French verbs by Jean Dubois et Françoise Dubois-Charlier is confirmed by the properties of the possible nominal counterparts. Moreover, taking the noun properties into account brings in the fore certain syntactico-semantic subclasses the verbs themselves cannot reveal.

This paper deals with the analysis of verbs of emotion of Dubois / Dubois-Charlier 1997 in Les Verbes français. Their results will be contrasted with those of Kailuweit 2005. Although the number of verbs is not equal (ca. 2000 in Dubois / Dubois-Charlier 1997 and only 520 in Kailuweit 2005) and the approaches are quite different (syntactic versus semantic), there are interesting parallels, especially as far as the classification of two-place verbs is concerned. Therefore, Kailuweit 2005 could be seen at least in part as a semantic foundation of the classes established by the impressing compilation created by Dubois / Dubois-Charlier 1997.

The dictionary Les Verbes français allows a thorough analysis of the polysemy of most verbs. A close look at its index shows the importance of the division of the headword entry performed by the authors and leads one to wonder about the combination of different syntactic and semantic critera on which these decompositions are based. We focus on the different facets of the verb changer because of its double peculiarity. (1) Although it is the typical representative of the generic “T” class for changes, it displays 19 entries. Thus we assume that the criteria of agent selection are decisive, as suggested by research on this verb by J. Picoche, B. Pottier and J. J. Franckel (§ 1). (2) On the other hand, the primary synonyms for changer do not share this syntactic ubiquity and generally predict specific types of changes (§ 2). The paper finishes with contrasting examples in the lexical entries of changer in Les Verbes français and in two other electronic dictionaries (the Dictionnaire Intégral and WordNet-Fr). In these works the predicative notion of changer appears to be conceptually different according to the properties of agents (§ 3).

The processing of the verb voir in Les verbes français (Dubois & Dubois-Charlier 1997) is compared with that of large dictionaries of the French language, with the lexicological approach developed by J. Picoche and with the analyses and proposals put forward primarily by J.-J. Franckel and D. Lebaud in the theoretical framework of A. Culioli. From this comparison, it appears that with a semantic classification based on syntactic and distributional properties of the language usage, (senses rise out which the intuition has no direct access to) meanings which are not intuitively accessible come to light. That allows the construal of a semantic identity of the verb founded on different theoretical prerequisites.

The aim of this contribution is to compare Les Verbes français by Dubois & Dubois-Charlier (1997) with several papers dealing with the verbal expression of cause : concept based thesaurus, syntactic verb classification, meaning-text approach. In this way the productivity of these various points of view may be assessed. J. Dubois & F. Dubois-Charlier's works, which results in a semantic classification based on the syntactic and distributional properties of all French verbs, appears to be the most compelling through its tight association of content and expression. It shows that languages establish their own semantic structure which is not equivalent with the referential or conceptual intuition.

Recent work on verbal polysemy has shown that a typology taking into account syntactic as well as semantic and lexical properties, not only allows us to better understand the link between syntax and meaning, but also offers an operational framework for the description of verbal meaning extensions (cf. Willems : 2002 & 2006). These observations reveal the existence of polysemic regularities within and between lexical classes. However, the discovery of those regularities, presupposes an exhaustive inventory of the syntactic and semantic properties of the verbal lexicon. In this perspective, the verb classification presented by Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier constitutes a particularly useful database. The aim of this contribution is to confront various verbal typologies (Guillet & Leclère : 1992, Dubois & Dubois-Charlier : 1997, Dixon : 1991 and Levin : 1993) in order to propose an integrated definition of the ditransitive locative verbs (mettre, enlever, transporter, laisser...) and to analyse the polysemic extensions specific to this verb class.

In this article we think over the use of « on » as the subject of the examples given in Les Verbes français, the electronic dictionary compiled by Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier. The frequency of the clitic, which is not part of the dictionary's meta-language (where it is represented by the indefinite “quelqu'un (qn)”), corresponds to the fact that the verbal entries are systematically accompanied by examples. As a two-letter word, it is functional within sentences limited to 60 letters. As lexicographic tradition will have it, the examples are very complex, illustrating all the values of that omni-personal pronoun, in particular the equivalence “on/nous”, which reintroduces theoretically – out of context – factors of deictic interpretation which are left out for the indefinite “quelqu'un”. The examples thus open up on a new form of modern naturalness of the syntactically and semantically minimal utterance, inseparable from dialogue situations, whose conditions of use connected to the ordinary French of both our written and oral modernity it contributes to codify.