Infinitives are trivially considered to license PRO, a covert null-Case pronoun, which represents the understood subject of an infinitive complement. However, two Romance infinitive constructions deviate from this canonical pattern and have their subject position filled by a phonetically realised lexical noun (or pronoun), which has nominative Case. In other words they license pro, which normally represents the understood subject of a finite clause. It follows that these infinitive constructions pose a problem for current theories of Control. The present thesis investigates inflected and personal infinitives in Romance languages from a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. The main goal is to offer a unified treatment of inflected and personal infinitives with regard to subject realisation, Case-licensing, Tense and non-obligatory control properties. Synchronically, on an empirical level, the generalisation is that infinitives with nominative subjects cannot surface as complements unless they bear agreement or are introduced by a complementiser. First, it is argued that agreement is not crucial to the licensing of nominative Case because other non-finite constructions, for example gerunds, license nominative subjects despite its absence. However, the latter is shown to correlate with postverbal subjects. Second, a minimalist analysis of inflected and personal infinitives is presented. It argues that both constructions are similar in that Tense licenses nominative Case . on the subjects but vary with respect to distribution: personal infinitives -unless they are introduced by a complementiser- cannot surface as complements whereas inflected infinitives can. Third, the non-obligatory control properties of inflected and personal infinitives are argued to derive from Agree not applying at CO (cf. Landau 2000), thus blocking the matching of features between the matrix and the infinitive subject, i.e. a controlled interpretation. Diachronically also, inflected and personal infinitives are intriguing since they have no direct lineage from Latin. It is proposed that there is no unique source and that inflected and personal infinitives have distinct sources. First, it is argued that the Accusativus cum Infinitivo construction cannot be proven to be the predecessor of these constructions. Second, the Spanish personal infinitive is shown to have two sources: for the personal infinitives as complements there is a learned source which has ceased to be productive and for personal infinitives as adjuncts a learnability-based account is put forward. The latter, based on a theory of acquisition and change, provides a model for the emergence of personal infinitives as adjuncts in Old Castilian that is consistent with the synchronic analysis.

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This thesis examines the impact of French on the language varieties of Gabon. Today, only a few Gabonese are still able to speak Gabonese languages without borrowing French lexis, and a great number of schoolchildren and students neither learn nor use them at home (82.5%). This study explores the case of Gabonese languages from colonial to post-colonial era, showing the extent to which cultural, social, economic, and political factors have contributed to their decline, and how Gabonese people's lifestyle has changed. This study is based on questionnaire data drawn from 2400 respondents, currently in full time education, 10 interviews with specialists of each area covered by the theoretical framework, three case studies focusing on primary, secondary, and higher education, including 30 families as part of participant observation. Note-taking was used to record 30 hours of spontaneous conversations in Gabonese families' homes. Data were analysed in terms of language choice patterns and language switching. Past studies on language decline have been drawn from a number of different perspectives. These approaches are relevant to this study, and this thesis employs each of them as far as is possible with the available data. Moreover, this study makes the following main findings: 1) the indigenous languages of Gabon are in danger of being lost within a generation or two. There has been a rapid shift from local languages to French from primary to higher education, and the gap between the young and the older generations is continuously widening. The findings reveal that this linguistic situation has been brought on by many years of colonisation by France, and most recently by massive waves of globalisation (Conklin, 1997); 2) Gabonese people are not assimilated to French culture contrary to popular belief; 3) the project of a national language is feasible. Based on 6 explanatory factors that are grounded on qualitative data, the theory of languages suggests that French and local languages can co-exist. In short, respondents seek social status or success through education (64.4%) or material possessions (20.6%), increasing, therefore, the potential for social progress. Thus, it is through these processes that the theory of languages creates a non-threatening environment and re-establishes equilibrium in the multi-lingual system of Gabon.

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Anyone seeking authoritative information on the subject of prefixation in French will be faced with a difficult problem; a thorough examination of the linguistic bibliographies will reveal no work of a general nature on prefixation and, indeed, very few studies of individual prefixes. This is all the more lamentable in view of the fact that the relevant sections of the bibliographies contain numerous titles of studies on suffixation from many aspects. In fact, the prefix, as a means of creating new words in French, has been sadly neglected as a subject for stud;y by comparison with the suffix. R.-L. Wagner appears to be very well aware of this not unimportant lacuna, and, since detailed studies of each individual prefix are necessary before any satisfactory work on prefixation as a whole can be undertaken, he has done much to fill the gap, both by working on the subject of prefixation himself and by encouraging others to make a stud;y of the functions of a number of individual prefixes in French. De(s)- has not yet received attention

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Im Zentrum dieser Arbeit steht der Roman der frankophonen Antillen (Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique) von seinen Anfängen in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart (Jacques Stephen Alexis, Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé, Raphaël Confiant, Edouard Glissant, Daniel Maximin, Gisèle Pineau, Clément Richer, Jacques Roumain, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Raphaël Tardon und Joseph Zobel). Untersucht wird, wie Natur in diesen Texten dargestellt wird und welche Implikationen dies für die existentielle Konzeption der Autoren mit sich bringt. Vor dem Hintergrund der lebhaften Debatte um den Postkolonialismus dienen die Naturschilderungen als Indikatoren, inwieweit sich die postkolonialen Autoren von der Exotik des Kolonialromans lösen und Texte entstehen, die das Land (und seine Landschaft) neu entziffern und imaginär in Besitz nehmen. Die perspektivische Umorientierung auf das Hier-und-Jetzt des Lebens- und Naturraums verdichtet sich dabei zu einer Vielzahl von Metaphern, Motiven und Erzählweisen, die im Dienste einer stets neu zu suchenden und zu erfindenden Identität stehen. Um die postkolonialen Naturdarstellungen kontrastiv zur landschaftlichen Ikonographie und Topik des Kolonialismus und Exotismus betrachten zu können, geht dem Hauptteil eine ausführliche Analyse des Naturbilds von drei exemplarischen Kolonialromanen der Autoren Reine Beurnier, Frères Leblond und Pierre Loti voran. / Cette thèse de doctorat donne une vue d'ensemble du roman postcolonial des Antilles francophones (Guadeloupe, Haïti, Martinique) de ses débuts jusqu’à nos jours. Parmi les auteurs abordés citons: Jacques Stephen Alexis, Patrick Chamoiseau, Maryse Condé, Raphaël Confiant, Edouard Glissant, Daniel Maximin, Gisèle Pineau, Clément Richer, Jacques Roumain, Simone Schwarz-Bart, Raphaël Tardon et Joseph Zobel. L’analyse répond à deux questions: Comment la nature est-elle représentée dans ces textes? Et qu’apprend-on de la conception existentielle des auteurs? Lue dans le contexte du discours postcolonial, la représentation de la nature fournit des indices qui nous éclairent sur la façon dont les auteurs postcoloniaux se distancient de l’exotisme colonial en écrivant des textes dont le but est de déchiffrer le pays et son paysage au delà des clichés exotiques. Ainsi les auteurs essaient de prendre possession et de leurs pays et de l’identité collective tout en créant un imaginaire postcolonial avec de nouveaux motifs, et de nouvelles métaphores et modes d’écriture. La démarche suivie est d’abord de typologie contrastive. Aussi la première partie de cette étude est consacrée au roman colonial et exotique et à sa manière de représenter la nature. Elle prend pour objet trois textes exemplaires des auteurs Reine Beurnier, Frères Leblond et Pierre Loti.

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This thesis seeks to investigate the question of whether learners of French in the upper secondary sector acquire intercultural competencies which are commensurate with their linguistic competencies, during their two-year preparation for the examinations at 'Advanced' level which allow admission to university. The study has been undertaken in relation to existing literature in the disciplines of foreign language pedagogy, intercultural communication and motivation for foreign language learning. It examines the concept of culture within the teaching of upper secondary French, and recent developments which have led to the concept of the 'intercultural speaker'. In particular, it draws upon the work of Keesing and Gudykunst in the field of intercultural communication and theoretical foundations in the field of foreign language and culture pedagogy in the work of Kramsch, Zarate and Byram. Data were collected during a two-year longitudinal study among upper secondary students of French in the north-east of England. They consist of a questionnaire and three semi-structured interviews, together with a number of informal assessment activities. Their teachers were also interviewed. Data were subsequently analysed within the theoretical framework of savoirs proposed by Byram (1997b) in Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. There was some evidence for the existence of certain of the savoirs and a disposition among the participants to develop others. It was clear from the data that experiences outside the classroom had been significant in this respect, but that certain pedagogical practices had probably also been helpful. The thesis concludes by recommending the inclusion of intercultural competencies in the specifications for foreign languages examinations in the upper secondary sector and offers some suggestions for a three stage development towards the status of intercultural speaker.