Between demonstrative and definite : a grammar competition model of the evolution of French l-determiners

This article investigates the spread of thele/la/les-forms in the diachrony of French on the basis of large-scale corpora. It focuses on the issue of their "mixed" distribution viz. the observation that during a long period of time thele/la/les-forms in French do not pattern as either (anaphoric) demonstratives from which they originate (Late Latinille), nor as (uniqueness-based) definites, which they end up becoming in Modern French. We model the phenomenon as a competition between two grammars which ascribe different Logical Forms to thel-forms and test model predictions in contexts which differ with respect to whether they satisfy the relevant conditions for either demonstrative or definite semantics. We also suggest that this change was part of a larger change involving the spread of presupposition triggers within noun phrases. We show that our model correctly predicts the relative rates of determiner spread in various contexts.

Jaar van publicatie:2020

Toegankelijkheid:Closed