The decline of the French passé simple / / Emmanuelle Labeau.

"The disappearance of the French simple past has been hotly debated since the early 20th century. This volume offers an overview of its fortunes since French emerged as a language, provides a description of its distinctive features, and discusses the potential impact of its supposed demise on t...

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Bibliographic Details
Superior document:Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory
VerfasserIn:
Place / Publishing House:Leiden, Netherlands ;, Boston, Massachusetts : : Brill,, [2022]
©2022
Year of Publication:2022
Language:English
Series:Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory
Physical Description:1 online resource (498 pages)
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Summary:"The disappearance of the French simple past has been hotly debated since the early 20th century. This volume offers an overview of its fortunes since French emerged as a language, provides a description of its distinctive features, and discusses the potential impact of its supposed demise on the whole French verb system. These assumptions are tested against a large corpus of contemporary texts. The study concludes that, despite the erosion of its meaning and its increasingly infrequent use, the simple past tense is still used by native speakers in various contexts, and no single substitute has yet emerged. Nevertheless, the simple past may be evolving into a stylistic marker, making it fertile ground for future cross-linguistic studies"--
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN:9789004463349
9789004510326
Hierarchical level:Monograph
Statement of Responsibility: Emmanuelle Labeau.