Thèse de doctorat : Mécanique et Energétique : Nancy 1 : 2008. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre.

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Energie, thermique, combustion : Poitiers : 2009. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. 74 réf.

Thèse doctorat : Génie mécanique : Ecully, Ecole centrale de Lyon : 2009. / 102 références.

Thèse doctorat : Génie mécanique : Ecully, Ecole centrale de Lyon : 2009. / Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. 102 références.

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Sciences de l'éducation : Paris 8 : 2007. / La version électronique ne comprend pas les annexes. Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr. p. 477-494.

Reproduction de : Thèse de doctorat : Histoire : Lyon 2 : 2002. / Thèse : 2002LYO20031. Titre provenant de l'écran-titre. Bibliogr.

The debate of the genesis of creole languages has been ongoing for many years. Although there are many theories that have been proposed, there are two that are the most polarized and have received the most amount of attention. These include universal theories and substrate theories. The central goal of the present paper is to investigate the role that serial verb construction (SVCs) can play in providing evidence for substrate influence in creoles. It does this by looking at the use of SVCs or lack thereof in the following creoles: Louisiana Creole, Haitian Creole, Papiamento, and Palenquero. I provide evidence that demonstrates that the presence of SVCs in a creole depends on whether they can also be found in their substrate language. By doing this, I successfully prove that substrate influence plays a bigger role than suggested by universalist. / text

This thesis investigates the argument structure of transitive particle constructions with the adverb bort, meaning ‘away’, ‘off’. On the basis of approximately 2000 authentic instances of the partially schematic structure [subject verb bort object], I have identified a number of constructions at different levels of abstraction. The overall aim of the thesis is to account for the argument structure of the bort-constructions and to provide an overview of the relation between verb meaning and constructional meaning. Based on the empirical investigation, the argument structure of these constructions seems most adequately accounted for by combining lexical and constructional factors. The investigation shows that the argument structure forms a lexical-constructional continuum: some constructions clearly have verb-specific meaning, whereas others have meaning more or less independently of the verb. In between we find constructions exhibiting various degrees of influence over the lexical properties of the verb. Verb meaning is analyzed within a causative semantic framework, and I assume an association between causation and argument structure. The bort-constructions form a causative continuum ranging from direct, physical to indirect, abstract causation. By analyzing the verbs’ semantics in relation to these different causative structures (semantic frames), I demonstrate that the causative continuum and the argument structure continuum are aligned: the more indirect the causation, the more constructionally dependent (less verb-specific) the argument structure.

Not available / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Linguistics / Master / Master of Philosophy