Sur l’identité et la différence en français: étude de l’encodage des arguments de même, pareil, autre et différent

Abstract

This contribution consists of a presentation of our PhD2, which aimed to describe the particular semantic and referential properties of the French adjectives même, pareil, autre and différent, on the basis of the different possibilities for syntactically encoding their arguments. These adjectives have four distinct uses, as a function of the relationship they establish between their arguments. The first chapter examines the cases of même / pareil / autre / différent when followed by an overt second argument introduced by a preposition or a complementizer. In chapters 2, 3 and 4, anaphoric readings, NP-internal readings and NP-dependant readings are examined one by one. The main data we report here account for why même, pareil, autre and différent do not syntactically encode their arguments in exactly the same way. The proposal also explains the various meanings identified with these adjectives.

Keywords

• adjective
• difference
• identity
• correlation
• anaphora
• referential dependency
• reciprocity
• même
• autre
• pareil