Possessif ou défini associatif ? Les relations fonctionnelles et actancielles

Abstract

This paper tackles the subject of associative and possessive anaphora with two kinds of nouns: relational nouns that Kleiber called functional (e.g. driver) and nouns of actants (e.g. murderer). For example, there is a functional relation between driver and car, an actantial relation between murderer and to murder. We first continue Kleiber’s semantic and referential analysis by emphasizing new properties of functional nouns, such as the level of adaptation to the functional relation and the kind of dependence relation, « possessive » or localizing. Finally, when all conditions are met for the use of either of the anaphoric processes, we elucidate the consequences of the referential choice upon textual coherence relations.

Keywords

• associative anaphora
• possessive anaphora
• re lational nouns
• functional relations
• actantial relations
• coherence relations.