From intensive to reflexive: the prosodic factor

Anne Zribi-Hertz (1)

1 SFL - Structures Formelles du Langage

Basing itself on a comparative study of English and French, this paper argues that prosody plays a relevant role in the semantic evolution of pronouns in natural languages. All other things being equal, the deaccenting of simplex 3rd-person personal pronouns contributes to favour their topical iterpretation, hence "disjoint reference" effects, which in turn trigger the development of marked strategies for the expression of reflexivity.

Mots clés: pronouns; weak pronouns; strong pronouns; disjoint reference; reflexive-marking; prosody and information structure; English/French comparison

Mots clés: pronoms; pronoms faibles; pronoms forts; disjonction référentielle; expression de la réflexivité; prosodie et structure informationnelle; comparaison anglais/français

Domaines: Linguistique

Anne Zribi-Hertz. From intensive to reflexive: the prosodic factor. 2007. ⟨halshs-00142214⟩