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Article published In:
Lexical plurals and beyond
Edited by Peter Lauwers and Marie Lammert
[Lingvisticæ Investigationes 39:2] 2016
► pp. 309–334

The capricious evolution of the indefinite plural article uns and its relationship with lexical plurality in medieval French

| University of Lille | CNRS UMR STL |

The indefinite plural article uns in medieval French conjoins the features of unity and plurality. Because of its grammatical nature, uns is not restricted to lexical plurals, but combines in a productive way to nouns having a regular singular-plural alternation in order to create a complex referent not reducible to the sum of its components. Moreover, uns expresses not only quantitative unity ‘one single N’, but also qualitative unity ‘one same N’ and is not linked to lexical plurality in the latter case. Since its features of unity and plurality are considered as incompatible, plural indefinite articles have been assumed to emerge in an advanced stage of grammaticalization, when the numeral source meaning is bleached out, and to be not viable over time. Both hypotheses were invalidated in the present study.

Keywords: lexical plural, indefinite article, grammaticalization
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1In search of grammatical markers of lexical plurality
    • 1.2Outline
    • 1.3Empirical data
  • 2.The different stages of grammaticalization of the indefinite article and the emergence of the plural form
    • 2.1The grammaticalization process of un and its stage of development in Old French: a new model
    • 2.2The plural indefinite article in the double-path model of the grammaticalization process
  • 3.The conditions of use of the plural indefinite article
    • 3.1Unity versus plurality
    • 3.2A typology of the uses of the plural indefinite article in medieval French
      • 3.2.1Qualitative uses of the indefinite plural article
      • 3.2.2Quantitative uses of the indefinite plural article
      • 3.2.3Statistical data concerning the conditions of use of the indefinite plural article in the 12th and 13th C
        • 3.2.3.1Qualitative versus quantitative use
        • 3.2.3.2The relative weight of the different features conditioning the quantitative use
    • 3.3The plural form of the indefinite article: a grammatical marker of lexical plural?
    • 3.4Fossilization and death of the indefinite article in the 15th C
    • 3.5The capricious evolution of the indefinite plural article
  • 4.Why does the plural form of the indefinite article disappear?
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Author queries
  • References
Published online: 30 March 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/li.39.2.06car
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