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Building Categories in Interaction: Linguistic resources at work
Edited by Caterina Mauri, Ilaria Fiorentini and Eugenio Goria
[Studies in Language Companion Series 220] 2021
► pp. 373–414

Chapter 14
French type-noun constructions based on genre

From the creation of ad hoc categories to ad hoc categorization

| University of Tübingen

Colloquial French genre is highly polysemous with a variety of functions such as comparison, approximation and the fully pragmaticalized functions as a mitigator, a quotative marker, an exemplifier, a marker of narrative progression, explanation and focussing. So far, the focus has been on the various discourse functions, however, several studies also point out possible paths of pragmaticalization. The aim of this paper is to analyse in greater detail the construction at the root of all these functions, i.e. “X of the same type as Y”, a construction originally used for construing ad hoc categories. This rather learned construction became established in the 19th century for French and transformed into a backgrounded instruction for sloppy categorization and the other derived colloquial functions listed above.

Keywords: pragmaticalization, pragmatic marker, ad hoc categories, approximation, mitigation, colloquial French, 19th century
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Well-established categories and linguistic labels
  • 3.Ad hoc categories
  • 4.Taxonomies and taxonomic nouns
    • 4.1The implicit and explicit reference to subkinds: Taxonomic readings
    • 4.2Preposed and postposed taxonomic nouns and the conflation of type and instance readings
      • 4.2.1Conflation of type and instance readings: Taxonomic nouns supporting adjectival modification
      • 4.2.2Conflation of type and instance readings: Postdeterminer uses
      • 4.2.3From subkind specification to approximative ad hoc categorization
  • 5.Constructions with genre building ad hoc categories
    • 5.1Ce genre de choses and related anaphoric constructions
    • 5.2‘X of the same type as Y’ creating ad hoc categories
  • 6.From ad hoc category to sloppy categorization: 20th and 21st century genre
    • 6.1From ad hoc category to ad hoc categorization
    • 6.2From comparison marker to approximation
    • 6.3From comparison marker to exemplification marker to connecting uses
    • 6.4A tentative semantic map for the pragmatic marker genre
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.220.14mih
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