À propos de la grammaticalisation/constructionnalisation de la relative attributive en français

Abstract

In this article, I revisit the origins of the attributive relative clause in French (in Je le vois qui vient), in order to advance the hypothesis that reanalysis preceding grammaticalization of this construction originates from a double ambiguity which is situated on two different planes of analysis: (1) on the plane of (non-)restriction of the referent of the antecedent of qui; (2) on the plane of informational structure of the sentence; and that the mentioned reanalysis originates from certain semantic and syntactic link between the attributive relative and the narrative relative clauses, which is best discernible in a kind of mixed relative clause which has relatively high frequency in Old French. In conclusion, I verify the relevance of the application of the concept of constructionalization to the evolution of the attributive relative clause.