Différentes études sur de larges corpus oraux ont permis ces dernières années de mettre en lumière des structures bien particulières tout en élaborant différents modèles articulés autour de nouvelles unités opératoires censées remplacer avec efficacité la notion de phrase. Nous pensons à l’inverse que la notion de phrase comme prédication assortie d’une modalité énonciative peut aisément être conservée pour traiter du français parlé, à condition cependant d’être perçue en temps réel. La phrase, désormais analysée en « noyau + affixes », est en effet avant tout une unité de traitement et de production n’ayant qu’une existence temporaire dans le flux de l’activité productive et interprétative. Ce postulat nous permettra d’expliquer certains phénomènes averbaux typiques de l’oral comme les réalisations de compléments différés, les répétitions, les reformulations, les recatégorisations de prédicats en affixes. Nous nous sommes donc intéressée plus particulièrement aux différents fonctionnements des segments sans verbe dans un corpus oral. Un premier ensemble rassemble les segments sans verbe fonctionnant en tant que phrases selon des degrés de prédicativité plus au moins élevés : prédications averbales, prédications interjectives et réalisations averbales d’une prédication verbale implicite. Cependant, pour de nombreux segments sans verbe, l’interprétation est moins sûre et ces segments dits « flottants », en marge des emplois canoniques, nous renvoient à la problématique de la phrase. C’est par exemple le cas de compléments différés, constituants averbaux oscillant entre trois pôles : éléments intégrés, éléments détachés et éléments autonomes. / Over the last few years, various studies on large corpora in spoken French have shed light on quite specific structures and have come up with various patterns which resort to new operating units. These units are alleged to efficiently replace the notion of sentence. However, we have chosen to keep the word 'sentence', which we define as the association of a predication and of an enunciative modality. We therefore think that this definition needn’t be replaced to analyse spoken French, provided the segment under scrutiny is deciphered at the time of its utterance. In this study, we will consider that the sentence is composed of a “nucleus plus affixes” and that it is above all a means of analysis as well as a production unit which are both temporary within the process of the productive and interpretative activity. This postulate will enable us to explain why some verbless structures are only found in spoken French, such as the product! ion of deferred complements, repetitions, rewordings and the re-categorizing of predicates into affixes. We took special interest in the various functions performed by verbless segments in a spoken French corpus. A first subgroup includes verbless segments which work like sentences in so far as they express various levels of predicability, such as verbless predications, interjectional predications, or verbless realisations of an implicit verbal predication. Yet, this analysis does not seem to work when applied to many verbless segments called floating segments since they do not correspond to the canonical definitions of the sentence. We thus have to reconsider what a sentence is, especially when we tackle postponed complements, or verbless constituents which partake of the three following categories: integrated elements, detached elements and autonomous elements.

Le but de cette thèse est d’apporter un éclairage nouveau sur la prédication averbale en français et en anglais, essentiellement dans le cadre théorique de la TOE. Le choix a donc été fait de parler d’énoncés averbaux plutôt que de phrases averbales. Après un important travail de définition des énoncés averbaux (que nous distinguons de l’ellipse, de l’apposition et de la prédication seconde) nous présentons les divers types d’énoncés averbaux et examinons la diversité des conditions d’occurrences dans lesquelles ils sont employés (discours littéraire et journalistique, discours muséal, contexte de signalisation, discours publicitaire), tout en ayant comme objectif la mise au jour d’un dénominateur commun, quel que soit le type de discours. Nous dressons la liste des principales différences de fonctionnement entre les deux langues, nous mettons en avant la nécessité de dépasser la typologie courante pour aboutir à un continuum interprétatif. Nous mettons en avant la dimension dialogique des énoncés averbaux ainsi que leur lien avec le présent et donc avec les paramètres qui constituent la situation d’énonciation et l’extralinguistique. Nous employons la métaphore de la proximité pour définir les relations entre l’énonciateur et divers éléments que sont l’extralinguistique, le co-énonciateur, la modalité et le contenu propositionnel des énoncés averbaux. / Our aim in this dissertation is to shed new light on verbless predication in English and French, within the theoretical framework developed by Antoine Culioli (TOE). The focus is accordingly on verbless utterances rather than verbless sentences. A general definition of verbless utterances is first given. These should not be confused with elliptical constructions, apposition and secondary predication. A typology of verbless utterances is first set up. We then provide a characterization of the different discourse types in which they occur (literature, news media, museum texts and captions, signposting, advertising). Verbless utterances, it is shown, share common, stable features, irrespective of their use and interpretation. Syntactic differences between English and French are outlined. The need for an interpretative continuum is highlighted. So is the need to underscore the dialogical dimension of verbless utterances, as well as their crucial connection to the present, i.e. to the speech situation and implied contextual parameters. The metaphorical concept of proximity is applied to describe the relationship between the speaker and the extralinguistic situation, the addressee, the modality and the propositional content of the verbless utterance.

Abstract My thesis discusses the semantic and syntactic properties of Finnish verbless expressions of events in the light of two examples, the SOURCE construction (e.g. Oikeusasiamieheltä huomautus lit. ‘From the ombudsman a complaint’) and the GOAL construction (e.g. Pakistanille rangaistus lit. ‘For Pakistan a punishment’). I show that they express dynamic events in a way comparable to finite constructions. However, they are not elliptic structures but genuinely verbless constructions. The study is founded on Cognitive Construction Grammar and frame semantics, and the analysis is based on two types of data and two methods. First, I collected three sets of 500 newspaper headlines mostly from the Finnish Language Bank (the SOURCE construction, the GOAL construction, and several different verbless constructions), and analyzed them intuitively. Second, I collected paraphrases of 15 instances of the SOURCE construction and 20 instances of the GOAL construction in order to obtain information on how other native speakers of Finnish construe the data which I analyzed intuitively by myself. As a result of this experimental semantic test, I had 169–215 paraphrases per instance of the SOURCE construction and 133–165 paraphrases per instance of the GOAL construction. I then analyzed these paraphrases both semantically and syntactically. The thesis comprises four articles. In the article A case in search of an independent life: The semantics of the initial allative in a Finnish verbless construction, I show that the GOAL construction is polysemous and define eight senses for it. With the help of the established senses, I also justify analyzing the construction as an independent argument structure construction and not as an elliptic structure. The article Elävä LÄHDE: Alkuasemaisen ablatiivin merkitystyypit verbittömässä konstruktiossa is a similar treatment of the SOURCE construction for which I define four senses. In the article Mihin verbittömien konstruktioiden merkitystyypit perustuvat? Skemaattiset ja polyseemiset tapahtumanilmaukset, I connect the previous results explicitly with my theoretical framework. I provide an explanation for these constructions’ polysemy and mechanisms of expressing events. Usually, both of these properties of argument structure constructions are associated with verbs. In the joint article Semantic roles and verbless constructions: A Finnish challenge for verb-centered approaches written with Seppo Kittilä, the discussion is extended to cover also other Finnish verbless constructions. The article provides a more theoretical perspective on the topic: we link the dynamic meanings of the constructions to the concept of semantic roles and argue for the view that the concept should be divided into the concepts of argument roles and participant roles. / Tiivistelmä Käsittelen tutkimuksessani suomen kielen verbittömien tapahtumanilmausten semanttisia ja syntaktisia ominaisuuksia kahden esimerkkitapauksen avulla: LÄHDE-konstruktion (esim. Oikeusasiamieheltä huomautus) ja KOHDE-konstruktion (esim. Pakistanille rangaistus). Osoitan, että ne ilmaisevat dynaamisia tapahtumia siinä missä verbilliset konstruktiotkin mutta eivät kuitenkaan ole elliptisiä rakenteita vaan aidosti verbittömiä. Tutkimukseni rakentuu kognitiivisen konstruktiokieliopin ja kehyssemantiikan sekä kahdenlaisen aineiston ja menetelmän varaan. Ensinnäkin koostin pääasiassa Kielipankin osakokoelmista mutta osin myös muista lähteistä kolme 500 otsikon kokoista toteutuma-aineistoa (LÄHDE-konstruktio, KOHDE-konstruktio ja useat erilaiset verbittömät konstruktiot). Niiden analyysi perustuu intuitiiviseen semanttiseen luokitteluun. LÄHDE- ja KOHDE-konstruktiosta käytössäni olivat lisäksi kokeellisen semantiikan tuottamat parafraasiaineistot: selvitin, miten koehenkilöt tulkitsevat 15 LÄHDE-konstruktion ja 20 KOHDE-konstruktion intuitiivisesti analysoimaani toteutumaa. LÄHDE-konstruktion testi tuotti 169–215 parafraasia otsikkoa kohden, KOHDE-konstruktion 133–165. Analysoin ne sekä semanttisesti että syntaktisesti. Tutkimukseni koostuu neljästä artikkelista. Artikkelissa A case in search of an independent life. The semantics of the initial allative in a Finnish verbless construction esitän, että KOHDE-konstruktio on polyseeminen. Määrittelen sille kahdeksan merkitystyyppiä, joiden avulla myös perustelen, miksi kyseessä on itsenäinen argumenttirakennekonstruktio eikä elliptinen rakenne. Artikkelissa Elävä LÄHDE. Alkuasemaisen ablatiivin merkitystyypit verbittömässä konstruktiossa käsittelen vastaavasti LÄHDE-konstruktiota, jolle määrittelen neljä merkitystyyppiä. Artikkelissa Mihin verbittömien konstruktioiden merkitystyypit perustuvat? Skemaattiset ja polyseemiset tapahtumanilmaukset kytken tulokset selvemmin teoreettiseen viitekehykseeni. Selitän, miksi tarkastelemani konstruktiot ilmaisevat tapahtumia ja ovat polyseemisia, vaikka niissä ei ole verbiä, johon sekä tapahtuman ilmaiseminen että argumenttirakennekonstruktion polyseemisyys yleensä yhdistetään. Seppo Kittilän kanssa kirjoittamassani yhteisartikkelissa Semantic roles and verbless constructions. A Finnish challenge for verb-centered approaches laajennamme suomen verbittömien konstruktioiden tarkastelun LÄHDE- ja KOHDE-konstruktion ulkopuolelle ja yhä teoreettisemmalle tasolle. Liitämme verbittömien konstruktioiden tapahtumamerkitykset semanttisen roolin käsitteeseen sekä perustelemme, miksi se pitäisi jakaa argumentti- ja osallistujaroolin käsitteiksi.

The present thesis studies the copular verbs and their co-occurrence with adjectival complements in contemporary written and spoken English. The theoretical part of this work first describes the copular verbs in terms of their types and types of complements they take. A corpus-based approach to copular verbs follows. A part of the theory also provides an overview of the terminology that is used with copular verbs. The work consists of two parts: the theoretical part which introduces the topic and describes the features of both the principal copula be and other copular verbs and the analytical part which analyses written language data excerpted from the Araneum Anglicum corpus and spoken language data from the Spoken BNC2014 corpus. The analytical part focuses on the following seven verbs: feel, look, seem, remain, become, go and get and their adjectival complements. These adjectives are then analysed in terms of their frequency and collocability with the verbs. The collocate lists of all verbs are then compared between the two corpora. Finally, the analysis also attempts to categorize the adjectives semantically. The analysis also focuses on adverbs which occur in these constructions and which function is to modify the adjectives. The results of the analytical part are summarized in the conclusion.

Questo studio si concentra sull’analisi di un fenomeno assai comune nell’italiano e ben attestato da oltre un secolo in diverse altre lingue, antiche e moderne: le costruzioni prive di un verbo in forma finita nel loro nucleo sintattico principale, che evidentemente non sono state oggetto di una ellissi e che non sempre possono essere definite frasi. Dopo le analisi su questo fenomeno fatte da Mortara Garavelli (1971) sullo scritto letterario e da Cresti (1998) sul parlato colloquiale, in questa ricerca si vuole indagare la natura delle costruzioni senza verbo in una nuova varietà di italiano, ossia lo scritto informale e dialogico prodotto sul web, che sarà definito in questa ricerca come italiano digitato colloquiale (IDC). Pertanto, questo studio adotta un approccio corpus-based, ricercando le costruzioni senza verbo in una raccolta di testi di IDC realmente prodotti, ossia nel corpus COSMIANU (Corpus Of Social Media Italian Annotated with Nominal Utterances) (Comandini et al., 2018). Si è dunque deciso di individuare il fenomeno sulla base della definizione di enunciato nominale di Ferrari (2011; 2014), ma adottando due prospettive sintattiche ancora mai applicate in ambito italiano: la teoria sentenzialista di Merchant (2004; 2006; 2010) e quella non-sentenzialista di Barton & Progovac (2005), entrambe applicate in inglese a strutture ellittiche definite frammenti senza antecedente esplicito. Pertanto, si è deciso di definire le strutture senza verbo studiate come frammenti nominali, nell’ottica tanto di inquadrare un fenomeno che, nella nuova varietà di lingua studiata, assume forme diverse rispetto allo scritto letterario e al parlato colloquiale, quanto di unire simbolicamente due tradizioni di studio delle costruzioni senza verbo che non si sono mai incontrate, ossia quella italo-francese, risalente a Meillet (1906), e quella anglo-americana, risalente a Sweet (1900). Grazie all’analisi dei frammenti nominali nell’italiano digitato colloquiale in ottica non-sentenzialista, si so-no individuate undici classi di frammenti nominali, alcuni dei quali possono essere considerati delle frasi, poi-ché contengono o un rapporto predicativo tra due costituenti, o una Tense Phrase al proprio interno. Sul fronte dell’analisi sentenzialista, invece, si è ipotizzata l’esistenza di una nuova categoria di frammenti nominali, nei quali è stato eliso un elemento pro e un verbo essere. Grazie al contributo tanto della teoria sentenzialista, quanto di quella non-sentenzialista, è stato possibile notare come l’ IDC abbia come uno dei tanti tratti diagnostici proprio la presenza di frammenti nominali che ne incarnano le caratteristiche principali, ossia: a) l’estrema natura dialogica, che quindi spiega l’alta presenza di formule di saluto e di ringraziamento (es.: CIAO A TUTTE LE FANS; grazie 1000000000000) e di interiezioni (es.: bleah!); b) la forte aderenza al contesto comunicativo, con frammenti nominali che hanno come nodo iniziale un NP, un DP o un AP che fa direttamente riferimento a un elemento precedentemente reso rilevante nel contesto (es.: Bellissimoooooooooooo !!!!!!!!!!!!), oppure a un elemento immediatamente successivo, di cui si specifica la natura (es.: una domanda... perché é all'inverso?). Successivamente, si è testato come l’individuazione e l’analisi sintattica dei frammenti nominali possa aiutare a comprendere e a riconoscere meglio l’hate speech. Analizzando i frammenti nominali portatori d’odio nel corpus di tweet razzisti POP-HS-IT (Comandini & Patti, 2019), si è notato come l’ IDC d’odio presenti le medesime classi di frammenti nominali individuate in COSMIANU, ma in percentuali diverse, con una partico-lare rilevanza dei frammenti nominali che hanno come nodo iniziale un FocP (es.: FUORI QUESTE MERDE UMANE DALL'ITALIA). Inoltre, si è trovata una notevole presenza di frammenti nominali di classe FocP (es.: pezzi di merda loro e tutto l’islam) corrispondenti alle frasi esclamative studiate da Munaro (2006) (es.: Noioso, il tuo amico!), in cui l’elemento focalizzato a sinistra (pezzi di merda) è sempre una caratteristica intrinseca e non temporanea del soggetto (loro e tutto l’islam). Questa tipologia di frammenti nominali esclamativi e focalizzati veicola alcune delle caratteristiche più universali dell’hate speech, ossia l’espressione di un odio generalizzato e non dibattibile verso una categoria di persone vista come un gruppo monolitico. L’individuazione dei frammenti nominali più caratteristici dell’hate speech potrebbe aiutare i tool automatici ad annotare i testi d’odio in maniera più accurata.