This paper deals with possessives in French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian. As is well known, the possessive paradigms of these languages contain three types of possessives: adjectives, determiners and pronouns (see Cardinaletti 1998, Schoorlemmer 1998, Zribi-Hertz 1999, Ihsane 2000, Alexiadou 2004. When comparing these with the Latin system, from which all Romance possessive systems derive, two tendencies prevail: (i) possessive pronouns tend to be eliminated, and (ii) possessive adjectives change into determiners or become deficient adjectives with a restricted distribution. A thorough study of each available type in the four languages, however, shows that the possessive system of each of these four languages is different. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which these differences are the result of different degrees of grammaticalization. Our investigation shows that the possessive system in French is in the lead in terms of grammaticalization in that neither of its two paradigms any longer display adjectival properties. The least grammaticalized system is the Italian, while Spanish and Romanian occupy an intermediate position: Spanish combines the French system of clitic forms with the Italian system of strong forms. As for Romanian, the dependence of the possessive form on the definite article or its substitute AL shows that it is more grammaticalized than the Italian.

ab st rac t Cet article discute la dichotomie cas structural vs non structural par rapport au datif français. Plusieurs faits semblent plaider en faveur du caractère non structural de ce datif, comme le marquage des datifs nominaux par une préposition (cf. cas oblique) et l'existence de datifs non argumentaux (cf. cas sémantique). Néanmoins l'examen des différents types de datif dont dispose le français montre que l'apparition de ce datif est soumise en premier lieuà des facteurs configurationnels. Dans la grande majorité des cas la présence du datif n'est en effet pas possible sans celle d'un autre argument interne dans le VP, qui a un rôle thématique inférieurà celui du datif.

No abstract

Marleen Van Peteghem : Interpreting pareil or how a relational adjective becomes an anaphoric device Pareil is a relational adjective, which expresses a relation of identity between two or more entities. Unlike même and différent, it does not give rise to referentially dependent interpretations. Nevertheless the arguments of the relation can be expressed in various ways, which allows us to distinguish three different uses of pareil: (i) pareil used with an overt item of comparison, taking the form of a PP introduced by the preposition à; (ii) an anaphorical use of pareil, in which one of the arguments of the relation is expressed in the preceding context, and finally (iii) an internal or reciprocal use of pareil, in which the different arguments are expressed by the plural NP pareil is predicated of. The aim of this contribution is to study the factors that bring about the latter two interpretations. It is shown that the anaphorical reading is the most frequent one and that it is the only one possible whenever pareil is used attributively preceding the noun. In these uses, pareil is very close to tel: both adjectives establish what could be called a generic anaphora. As for the reciprocal interpretation, it is made possible by the presence of a quantifier, which focalises the part structure of the referent of the NP. This quantifying element can be a determiner, a floating quantifier, an adverbial or even a durative copular verb such as rester. interpretations. It is shown that the anaphorical reading is the most frequent one and that it is the only one possible whenever pareil is used attributively preceding the noun. In these uses, pareil is very close to tel: both adjectives establish what could be called a generic anaphora. As for the reciprocal interpretation, it is made possible by the presence of a quantifier, which focalises the part structure of the referent of the NP. This quantifying element can be a determiner, a floating quantifier, an adverbial or even a durative copular verb such as rester.

International audienceThe aim of this paper is to propose a unified account of dative assignment for both verbs and adjectives in French. We will show that both types of predicates assign dative case to their second internal argument, provided that this argument is situated in a higher position in the thematic hierarchy than the first internal argument. This hypothesis, which considers the dative in French as a structural rather than a semantic case, can easily account for all three-argument verbs, for most two-argument verbs and even for adjunct datives. As for the adjectival predicates, we will show that only ergative adjectives, whose first argument is an internal argument, can assign dative to their second internal argument. The few exceptions to this hypothesis can be explained by the fact that, although the dative is not a semantic case, it is associated with certain semantic roles, given that its semantic role is situated in the thematic hierarchy between the role of the external argument and the role of the first internal argumen