Le naturel et l’artificiel dans l’imaginaire linguistique des grammairiens français de la fin du XIXe / début du XXe siècle

Abstract

This paper examines the linguistic imaginary that unfolds in Léon Clédat’s Grammaire raisonnée de la langue française (1894) and Ferdinand Brunot’s La pensée et la langue (1922). These works construct an opposition between a spontaneous evolution of language and a development constrained by the codifications of grammarians, an opposition that can be found among several linguists of the same period and that can be linked to the theme of the “vie du langage”, which entered France at the end of the 19th century. The analysis of the treatment of the grammatical rule in Clédat and Brunot highlights a distinction between “natural” and “artificial” linguistic facts and invites us to question what, according to these authors, would allow us to access the “truth” of language: popular productions and literary productions enjoy a particular status in their work in this respect.

Keywords

• linguistic imaginary
• french grammar
• léon clédat
• ferdinand brunot
• “vie du langage”
• grammatization
• popular language
• literary language