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Cette mesure est-elle vraiment clé? A constructional approach to categorial gradience1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2014

KRISTEL VAN GOETHEM
KRISTEL VAN GOETHEM*
Affiliation:
F.R.S.-FNRS and Université catholique de Louvain
*
Address for correspondence: Université catholique de LouvainInstitut Langage et Communication, Pôle Linguistique Place Blaise Pascal 1, box L3.03.33 1348 Louvain-la-NeuveBelgium e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article investigates the recently developed adjectival properties of the French noun clé ‘key’, as attested in for instance un poste très clé ‘a really key position’ and Cette mesure est-elle vraiment clé? ‘Is this measure really key?’. The main purpose of this study is triple: it consists in analysing (i) which adjectival uses can be found in modern French, (ii) to what extent they are accepted by native speakers (from different geographical varieties) of French, and (iii) how they can be accounted for within the framework of Construction Grammar and Construction Morphology. It will be hypothesised that French clé is subject to categorial gradience as a consequence of an ongoing constructionalisation process.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 115 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

1

Acknowledgements This study has benefited from the financial support of the Belgian F.R.S.-FNRS foundation. The surveys presented in Section 3.3 have been made possible thanks to the collaboration of Philippe Hiligsmann (Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium), Dany Amiot (Université Lille 3, France) and Wim Remysen (Université Sherbrooke, Quebec). I would like to thank them very cordially for submitting the acceptability tests to their students. Special thanks also go to Anne Lore Leloup (Université catholique de Louvain) for her assistance with the statistical tests. Finally, the article has greatly benefited from the valuable comments and suggestions of the anonymous reviewers and the discussions with Dany Amiot and Hendrik De Smet.

References

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DATA SOURCES

Frantext: http://atilf.atilf.fr/frantext.htmGoogle Scholar
GlossaNet: http://glossa.fltr.ucl.ac.be/Google Scholar
Google news archives: http://news.google.comGoogle Scholar
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