Edited by Gerda Haßler
[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 115] 2011
► pp. 265–276
This article offers some reflections about rules in grammars as complex discursive objects, more precisely about their function and their status in the history of the description and institution of vernacular languages. Our analysis traces an example of exceptional longevity within the corpus of French grammars during the 17th and 18th centuries: the rule concerning the agreement of past participle used with the auxiliary verb ‘avoir’. Our attention focuses on the historicity of discourse constructions through which this rule is empirically written in grammars throughout this period: Different grammarians do not express it in the same terms and do not conceive its content in the same way, using the same conceptual material. The rule raises different issues at different times within the history of the French language itself, and within the history of linguistics. We intend here to restore a part of this complexity.
Article language: French
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