A distinct feature of Brahms's compositional style is the cumulative development of melodic material that occurs throughout the composition. This motivic treatment appears in rhythmic and pitch fragments that are prolonged though various repetitions and newly derived figures related to earlier statements at the beginning of the composition. The compositional practices of Brahms as they relate to thematic unity reflect an earlier concept of the Grundgestalt, described in elements of nature by the 19th century philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The creative application of this concept by Brahms influenced the work of Arnold Schoenberg, who provided a more formal description as it relates to music and the compositional process. In this thesis, a relationship between Schoenberg's concept of the Grundgestalt and Brahms's compositional technique of motivic manipulations is explored. Movements from the First and Second Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by Brahms have been selected in order to observe his motivic treatment and the ways in which it permeates the composition. The motivic development that characterizes Brahms's style involves an initial motive with a distinct contour and intervallic content. The motive is manipulated with various techniques such as inversion, rhythmic variety and reordered segments that later transform into newly derived forms. An analysis of motivic material and the techniques that create a type of "developing variation" will be a significant focus of this thesis.

Dans cette thèse, nous abordons la question de l’identité sémantique respective des prépositions russes в (/v/) et на (/na/) en établissant pour chacune d’elles un schéma relationnel de base, en construisant leur configuration idéographique, en regroupant leurs relations sémantiques dans le but d’expliquer les emplois polysémiques de ces prépositions. Nous considérons la signification de la préposition comme un réseau complexe, où le sens abstrait de la préposition est précisé par un nombre d’éléments sémantiques (traits idéographiques et relationnels) qui font partie du contexte dans lequel se fixent les différents champs d’application de la préposition. Les systèmes prépositionnels du russe et du français ne sont pas identiques car les champs sémantico-relationnels des prépositions dans les deux langues sont différents : le caractère de la relation (l’activation des traits idéographiques) et le nombre d’entités mises en rapport, régies par telle ou telle préposition, diffèrent d’une langue à l’autre. / The thesis tackles the question of the semantic identity of the Russian prepositions « в » and « нa » establishing for each of them a relational basic scheme, by building their ideographic configuration, by grouping together their semantic relations in order to explain the polysemous use of them. It is argued that the meaning of the preposition is a complex system, where the abstract meaning of the preposition is specified by a number of semantic elements (ideographic and relational features) which are part of the context in which settle the various fields of application of the preposition. The Russian and French prepositional systems diverge because the semantico-relational fields of the prepositions are different in both languages : the character of the relation (activation of the ideographic features) and the number of entities in contact, governed by such or such preposition, differ from one language to another.