The Two Forms of Subject Inversion in Modern French

97 Pages·1973·7.397 MB·English

by  James C. Atkinson

JANUA LINGUARUM
STUDIA MEMORIAE
NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA
edenda curai
C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD
Indiana University
Series Practica, 168

THE TWO FORMS
OF SUBJECT INVERSION
IN MODERN FRENCH
by
JAMES C. ATKINSON
1973
MOUTON
THE HAGUE • PARIS
© Copyright 1973 in The Netherlands.
Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 72-88209
Printed in Hungary
PREFACE
An introductory chapter will elaborate fully on the scope and plan of this book, but
a few preliminary words are in order here. This is a descriptive study of the two forms
of subject inversion prevalent in Modern French. The forms are those cast as VERB+
NOUN and il + VERB + NOUN (e.g., Vint un homme/Il vint un homme)\ they may
appear, on casual examination, to be functionally equivalent, with the choice of one
or the other in a given context being governed perhaps by some vague stylistic or
rhythmic consideration. Style is inherent, most probably, in any use of the inverted
subject at all (both constructions are contrastive to the basic Normal Word Order
and indeed are essentially literary), but it has been the aim of this study to demonstrate
that VS and IVS, as I term the respective combinations, are themselves syntactically
autonomous: that their distribution is in fact determined by a series of mainly formal
criteria which can be, and to a certain extent have been here, identified.
My conclusions are based on the evidence of thousands of examples of VS and
IVS drawn from a substantial cross-section of published texts of the twentieth century.
The sheer weight of numbers has imposed a limitation on the dimensions of this
initial study, since its aim was other than mere quantity survey. The range of referen-
tial modes spanned by the two constructions is so vast that I have preferred to offer
here a complete profile of VS and IVS as it is revealed in only one area - that of
STAGED ACTIVITY. The term is not original: it denotes those portions of novelistic
discourse that purport to describe sensuous phenomena taking place 'on stage', as
though directly perceptible to a reader, in the course of a narrative. For this one kind
of context I am able to make a series of definitive statements that account for every
occurrence of VS and IVS, without exception. Staged Activity alone provides us with
over a thousand such occurrences from my total corpus, representing the output of
almost one hundred fifty volumes of modern prose fiction.
It also provides by far the most interesting and widely variable word material
employed anywhere, for it participates in the entire created world inside the novel
or short story and is itself the very essence of an author's technique to render external
reality immediate and alive. An exploration into Staged Activity as a semantic area
becomes, then, a bonus of the second chapter, which presents the full range of VS
6 PREFACE
in the service of the novelist. Under the same headings established for VS are sub-
sequently aligned corresponding examples of IVS, and the resulting comparison
leads to my conclusions on the distribution of the two discrete constructions as well as
to some general observations on their nature.
This study owes its existence, in large measure, to methods of linguistic analysis
developed by Professor Anna Granville Hatcher, of Indiana University. It is a pleas-
ure to acknowledge, with deep gratitude, the debt which I owe to her expert guidance
and continuing interest.
Publication of the present study was materially aided by a grant from the Research
Council of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
J. c. A.
CONTENTS
Preface 5
Works Cited, with Abbreviations 9
I. Introduction 13
II. VS in Staged Activity 18
III. IVS V5-. VS 44
IV. Conclusion 59
Appendix 70

WORKS CITED, WITH ABBREVIATIONS
A Poccadaz, Robert de, Les avides (Paris: Grasset, 1957).
AC Bosco, Henri, Vâne culotte (Paris: Gallimard, 1937).
AD Vercors, Les animaux dénaturés (Paris: Albin Michel, 1952).
AG Mauriac, François, L'agneau, vol. XIII of Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1956).
AGT Gide, André, Thésée (New York: Pantheon Books, 1946).
AJC Rolland, Romain, Vaube (Paris: Albin Michel, 1927).
AM Green, Julien, Adrienne Mesurât (Paris: Librairie Pion, 1927).
AN Bosco, Henri, L'antiquaire (Paris: Gallimard, 1954).
AX Benoît, Pierre, Axelle (Paris: Hachette, 1935).
B Gascar, Pierre, Les bêtes (Paris: Gallimard, 1953).
BB Benoît, Pierre, Bethsabée (Paris: Albin Michel, 1938).
BC Aymé, Marcel, Le boeuf clandestin (Paris: Gallimard, 1939).
BF Barbusse, Henri, Le feu (Paris: Flammarion, 1916).
BL Mauriac, François, Le baiser au lépreux, vol. I of Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Grasset, 1950).
BN Breton, André, Nadja (Paris: Gallimard, 1928).
C Malraux, André, Les conquérants (Paris: Grasset, 1928).
CB Chateaubriant, A. de, La brière (Paris: Grasset, 1923).
CBA Aragon, Louis, Les cloches de Bâle (Paris: Éditions Denoël et Steele, 1934).
CCL Chevallier, Gabriel, Clochemerle (Paris: Rieder, 1934).
CEG Giraudoux, Jean, Choix des élus (Paris: Grasset, 1939).
CH Malraux, André, La condition humaine (Paris: Gallimard, 1946).
CHM Morand, Paul, Champions du monde (Paris: Grasset, 1930).
Cl Barrés, Maurice, La colline inspirée (Paris: Librairie Pion, 1922).
CJC Curtis, Jean-Louis, Les justes causes (Paris: René Julliard, 1954).
CM Giono, Jean, Le chant du monde (Paris: Gallimard, 1934).
CMC Colette, La maison de Claudine (Paris: Ferenczi, 1922).
CMM Mauriac, François, Les chemins de la mer (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1953).
CPN Duhamel, Georges, Cécile parmi nous (Paris: Mercure de France, 1938).
CRB Dorgelès, Roland, Les croix de bois (Paris: Albin Michel, 1919).
CSE Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de, Courrier sud (Paris: Gallimard, 1929).
CU Benoît, Pierre, Les compagnons d'Ulysse (Paris: Albin Michel, 1937).
CV Gide, André, Les caves du Vatican (Paris: Gallimard, 1922).
DA Mauriac, François, Le désert de l'amour, vol. II of Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Grasset, 1950).
DMR Rolland, Romain, Dans la maison (Paris: Albin Michel, n.d.).
DS France, Anatole, Les dieux ont .«»/(Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1924).
DSM Dorgelès, Roland, Saint Magloire (Paris: Albin Michel, 1922).
DV Queneau, Raymond, Le dimanche de la vie (Paris: Gallimard, 1951).
E Camus, Albert, L'étranger (Paris: Gallimard, 1942).
EC Mallet-Joris, Françoise, L'empire céleste (Paris: Julliard, 1958).
EM Malraux, André, L'espoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1937).