Agrégation Externe : annales des sujets de leçon de littérature

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Sommaire

Littérature

Roman/nouvelles

Brontë

  • Erring in Jane Eyre
  • The didacticism of Jane Eyre
  • Reading the other and writing the self in Jane Eyre
  • “They were under a yoke: I could free them” (p.328) in Jane Eyre
  • Giving “furious feelings uncontrolled play” (p.31) in Jane Eyre

Burney

  • Conversation in Evelina
  • Confusion in Evelina
  • "Romance and nature" (p. 10) in Evelina
  • Art and artlessness in Evelina

Chaucer

  • Le profane et le sacré dans The Canterbury Tales
  • "Teche us yonge men of youre praktike" (The Wife of Bath's Prologue, l. 187): innocence et expérience dans The Canterbury Tales

Conrad

  • L'autre dans Lord Jim
  • "It is impossible to see him clearly - especially as it is through the eyes of others that we take our last look at him." (Lord Jim, p. 201)
  • Le secret dans Lord Jim
  • "The power of sentences has nothing to do with their sense" (Lord Jim)

Desai

  • Rituals in In Custody
  • Vicariousness in In Custody
  • The lofty and the lowly in In Custody

Dickens

  • "A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other." (p. 16), in A Tale of Two Cities
  • "A Tale Two Cities as a "profound meditation on strangeness, on the principle of reconciliation, and on the meaning of resurrection” (Andrew Sanders, Charles Dickens, Oxford, OUP, 2009(2003), p. 35).
  • "What connexion can there have been between many people in the innumerable histories of this world, who, from opposite sides of great gulfs, have, nevertheless, been very curiously brought together!" (Charles Dickens, Bleak House, Chapter 16, London, Penguin, 2003 (1853), p. 256)
  • "[T]he reality of mist and rain" (p. 19)
  • "[U]nseen force[s]" (p. 235)
  • "The substance of the shadow" (p. 306)
  • “The popular and picturesque means of understanding that terrible time", Preface to A Tale of Two Cities, 2008 (1859), p.3
  • Seeing in A Tale of Two Cities
  • "The murmuring of many voices" (p. 360) in A Tale of Two Cities
  • Roles and disguises in A Tale of Two Cities
  • "Sublime and Prophetic" (p. 360) in A Tale of Two Cities

Eliot

  • Le mélodrame dans The Mill on the Floss
  • L'inné et l'acquis dans The Mill on the Floss
  • La dérive dans The Mill on the Floss
  • La servitude volontaire dans The Mill on the Floss
  • L'histoire naturelle dans The Mill on the Floss
  • "Things have got so twisted round and wrapped up i' unreasonable words" (p. 20): mots et maux dans The Mill on the Floss

Faulkner

  • Figures de l'absence dans The Sound and the Fury

Ford (Ford Maddox)

  • Identité et identification dans The Good Soldier
  • Silences dans The Good Soldier
  • L'écriture de la mémoire dans The Good Soldier
  • "It is difficult to give an all-round impression of any man" (The Good Soldier, p. 101)
  • Affaires de coeur dans The Good Soldier
  • Le corps à l'oeuvre dans The Good Soldier

Ford (Richard)

  • Expectations in A Multitude of Sins

Frame

  • The art of conversation in The Lagoon and Other Stories
  • Narrative frames and textual spaces in The Lagoon and Other Stories
  • "[T]he wrong way of looking at Life" (p.183) in The Lagoon and Other Stories
  • "[P]utting a wise ear to the keyhole of [the] mind" (p.131) in The Lagoon and Other Stories
  • Finding a voice in The Lagoon and Other Stories
  • Self-consciousness in The Lagoon and Other Stories

Gaines

  • "There had to be a story" (The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, p. V)
  • Pères et fils dans The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
  • L'émancipation dans The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

Hardy

  • Récit et déterminisme dans Far From the Madding Crowd
  • Taming nature in Far from the Madding Crowd
  • "feeling balanced between poetry and practicality" (p. 28) in Far from the Madding Crowd
  • "a world made up so largely of compromise" (p. 34) in Far from the Madding Crowd
  • "[T]he coarse meshes of language" (p.21) in Far from the Madding Crowd
  • "The "silent workings of an invisible hand" (p.217)in Far from the Madding Crowd
  • "The exuberant ideological confidence of the opening [of Far from the Madding Crowd] is chastened along with its characters in the course

of the narrative." (Penny Boumelha, "The Patriarchy of Class", in The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Hardy, Dale Kramer ed., Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p.140. Discuss, with reference to the novel and the film

Hawthorne

  • Ethique et esthétique dans The Scarlet Letter
  • Miroirs et reflets dans The Scarlet Letter

Hemingway

  • L'art de la perte dans Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • "[P]urity of line" (p.146) in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • Dereliction in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • Potency in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • Celebration and lament in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • "I don’t film well" (p. 44) in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • Artlessness in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • Immediacy in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • Ceremonial action in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • Disenchantment in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises
  • Emotions and sensations in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises

Millhauser

  • Le jeu dans The Knife Thrower and Other Stories

Nabokov

  • The lyricism of Lolita
  • Enchantment in Lolita
  • Pictorialism in Lolita
  • “Lolita is a tragedy”. Vladimir Nabokov, Letter to Morris Bishop, 6 March, 1956

O'Connor

  • Une dialectique de la condamnation et du pardon
  • L'inhumain
  • La grâce et le grotesque
  • L'écriture du moment
  • L'animalité

Okri

  • « [A] delirium of stories » (p. 213).
  • « [T]he winds of recurrence » (p. 220).
  • « [I]nterstitial realities » (Ato Quayson, “Means and Meanings: Methodological Issues in Africanist Interdisciplinary Research”, History in Africa 25, 1998, p. 318).
  • « It is terrible to remain forever in-between” (p. 6).
  • Possession.
  • « Like a strange fairyland in the real world. », (p. 242).
  • « Time is not what you think it is », (p. 554).
  • «[W]eird delirium » (p. 228).
  • Interruption in The Famished Road

Quincey

  • Erudition et imagination dans Confessions of an Opium-Eater
  • Progression et digression dans Confessions of an Opium-Eater
  • Marges et vagabondages dans Confessions of an Opium-Eater
  • La dualité dans Confessions of an Opium-Eater
  • Confessions of an Opium-Eater : les illuminations
  • "Familiar objects" dans Confessions of an Opium-Eater

Roth

  • Heroes and hero worship in American Pastoral
  • Wasteland and wonderland in American Pastoral
  • "Reprehensible" lives (p. 423) in American Pastoral
  • "[A] biography in perpetual motion" (p.45) in American Pastoral
  • “[G]enealogical aggression” (pp. 382-383) in American Pastoral
  • « [A]ll that rose to the surface was more surface » (p. 23) in American Pastoral
  • « The man within the man » (p. 30) in American Pastoral
  • « Layers and layers of misunderstanding » (p. 64) in American Pastoral
  • « Of course I was working with traces » (p. 76).
  • The curse of perfection in American Pastoral
  • Introspection and retrospection in American Pastoral
  • Opacity in American Pastoral

Roy

  • L'obscurité dans The God of Small Things
  • Les enjeux de pouvoir dans The God of Small Things
  • Progresser, transgresser, régresser dans The God of Small Things
  • Le suintement du secret dans The God of Small Things

Smollett

  • Theatricality in The Adventures of Roderick Random
  • The Contrivance of Plot in The Adventures of Roderick Random
  • « Monsters of the imagination » (John Cleland, The Monthly Review 4, March 1751, p. 355) in The Adventures of Roderick Random
  • Appearances in The Adventures of Roderick Random
  • Progress in The Adventures of Roderick Random
  • “The knavery of the world” (p.47) in The Adventures of Roderick Random

Steinbeck

  • "maybe that is the Holy Sperit - the human sperit" in The Grapes of Wrath

Stoker

  • Les codes de la représentation dans Dracula
  • Signes et symptômes dans Dracula

Styron

  • L'impensable dans Sophie's Choice
  • Le corps dans Sophie's Choice

Swift

  • L'humanisme de Gulliver's Travels
  • La curiosité dans Gulliver's Travels
  • L'inventaire dans Gulliver's Travels
  • L'étrange et l'étranger dans Gulliver's Travels

Wharton

  • "The dramatic contrasts of life" (p. 119) in The House of Mirth
  • Night and day in The House of Mirth


Théâtre

Beckett

  • "I simply cannot understand why some people call me a nihilist. There is no basis for that." (Samuel Beckett) Discuss with reference to Endgame.
  • The end of art in Endgame
  • Seeing and being seen in Endgame
  • “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness” (p.20) in Endgame

Everyman

  • Théâtre et théologie dans Everyman
  • Form and reform in Everyman
  • Individuality and exemplarity in Everyman

Shakespeare

  • L'économie de l'amour dans A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • Ordre et désordre des passions dans A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • "Wand'ring in the wood" (II. 2. 41) dans A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • The lamentable tale of me dans Richard II
  • La perspective dans Richard II
  • La mystification dans Richard II
  • Langage et violence dans Richard II
  • Le mensonge des mots dans Richard II
  • "His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast" : rhétorique et sincérité dans Richard II
  • Langage et trahison dans Richard II
  • Guerre et paix dans Richard II
  • The Winter’s Tale and the « poetics of incomprehensibility » (Stephen Orgel, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 4, 1991, p. 431-437)
  • "Th’ argument of Time" in The Winter’s Tale (IV, 1, 29)
  • "recreation" (III, 2, 238) in The Winter’s Tale
  • "Seeming and savour all the winter long" (IV, 4, 75) in The Winter's Tale
  • In The Winter's Tale, "Nature is made better by no mean / But Nature makes that mean" (IV, 4, 89-90)
  • "[T]ransformations" (IV, 4, 31) in The Winter's Tale
  • Contradictions and paradoxes in King Lear
  • Order, rule and hierarchy in King Lear
  • “The promised end” (V, 3, 261) in King Lear
  • Erring in King Lear
  • Hierarchies in King Lear
  • « [F]iguring diseases » (I, 2, 49) in Measure for Measure
  • « [D]evilish mercy » (III, 1, 64) in Mesaure for Measure
  • « [T]he liberty of the prison » (IV, 2, 145-146) in Measure for Measure
  • Power and authority in Measure for Measure
  • Exposure and concealment in Measure for Measure
  • Confessions in Measure for Measure
  • « My business is a word or two » (III, 1, 48) in Measure for Measure
  • Excess in Measure for Measure
  • Subordination in Measure for Measure
  • Resistance in Measure for Measure
  • Shadows in Measure for Measure

Stoppard

  • The staging of ideas in Arcadia
  • Vistas in Arcadia
  • "Nothing is impressive but the scale" (p.3) in Arcadia
  • Landscapes of the mind in Arcadia
  • Designs in Arcadia
  • Transformation in Arcadia
  • "To make sense of nature’s senselessness" in Arcadia (Stephen Schiff, « Full Stoppard », in Tom Stoppard in Conversation, Paul Delaney & Ann Arbor (eds.), The University of Michigan Press, 2001 (1994), p. 224)
  • "[C]rossing boundaries between scandal and propriety" in Arcadia (Russell Twisk, "Stoppard Basks in Late Indian Summer", in Tom Stoppard in Conversation, Paul Delaney & Ann Arbor (eds.), The University of Michigan Press, 2001 (1994), p. 253)
  • "The exaltation of knowledge" (p. 108) in Arcadia
  • Music and silence in Arcadia

Williams

  • Le paradis perdu dans A Streetcar Named Desire

Poésie

Burns

  • L'art du chant et du conte dans les Selected Poems
  • L'impertinence dans les Selected Poems

Dickinson

  • "The Universe is the externization of the soul." (R.W. Emerson, "The Poet" [1847], Emerson’s Prose and Poetry, New York and London: Norton, 2001, p. 185) in The Complete Poems
  • "Earthquake Style" in The Complete Poems (p. 295)
  • Dramatizing the Self in Emily Dickinson’s Poetry.
  • “Trust in the Unexpected” (p.270) in The Complete Poems
  • “Gem-Tactics” (p.151) in The Complete Poems
  • Liminality in The Complete Poems

H.D.

  • “We are the keepers of the secret” (p. 24) in Trilogy
  • “Collect[ing] the fragments of the splintered glass” (p. 63) in Trilogy
  • "It was not a dream/ yet it was a vision, / it was a sign", "Tribute to the Angels", [23], p. 87
  • "I testify", "Tribute to the Angels" [43]

Lais bretons

  • Disenchantment in Sir Launfal
  • Voices in the Middle English Breton Lays and The Franklin’s Tale
  • Quest(s) in Sir Degare

Walcott

  • "either I’m nobody, or I’m a nation"
  • L'hybridité dans The Collected Poems

Wordsworth et Coleridge

  • "[A]wakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom" in Lyrical Ballads (S.T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Chap. XIV)
  • Anecdotes in Lyrical Ballads
  • Simplicity in Lyrical Ballads
  • « Strange power of speech » p. 77, l. 620.
  • « [T]he sympathies of men » (Preface to Lyrical Ballads [1800], 2005, (p. 290).
  • The sense of community in Lyrical Ballads
  • Dramatic narrative in Lyrical Ballads
  • Motion and Emotion in Lyrical Ballads
  • The Poetics of Discovery in Lyrical Ballads

Yeats

  • « Weaving olden dances » in the Selected Poems

Civilisation

Civilisation britannique

Débat sur l'abolition de l'esclavage

  • The end of slavery in Britain: Parliament's or the people's victory?
  • "[...] the more the character of the planters is raised, the lower is sunk and depressed the system; for it is a fact sworn to by the planters themselves, that, notwithstanding their merciful conduct, in ten years one-sixth of the whole population has perished not murdered by the planters, but murdered by the system. There is no instance, I am ready to admit, of unnecessary oppression, but there have been instances of necessary oppression; and the system is shewn to be so destructive to human life, that it ought to be abolished." (Mr. Fowell Buxton, in Report of the Debate in the House of Commons, on Friday, the 15th of April, 1831; on Mr. Fowell Buxton's motion to consider and adopt the best means for effecting the abolition of colonial slavery. Extracted from the Mirror of Parliament, Part LXXXIII [London, 1831, p. 7])
  • “Anti-slavery provided the opportunity for elevating Britain by seizing the initiative and restoring the British belief that they, above all others, were a people wedded to liberty. After all, which institution seemed more violent and more thoroughly a denial of liberties than the Atlantic slave trade?”, James Walvin, Britain’s Slave Empire, Stroud: Tempus, 2007 (2000), 96

Décolonisation

  • "Decolonization was not a process but a clutch of fitful activities and events, played out in conference rooms, acted out in protests mounted in city streets, fought over in jungles and mountains." Raymond F. Betts, Decolonization, New York: Routledge, 1998, p. 1.
  • "The quintessential problem of the post-1964 period was no longer (except in certain outstanding instances) that of whether and how to decolonize, but rather how to graft the plethora of ‘new’ underdeveloped states into western interests." Robert Holland, European Decolonization, 1918-1981. An Introductory Survey, London: Macmillan, 1985, p.269.
  • Internationalism and nationalism in British decolonisation (1919-1984)
  • "Postwar imperial ideologies remained and remain progressivist and arrogantly ethnocentric; they did not and do not remain specifically colonial." F. Cooper and A.L. Stoler, "Tensions of Empire: Colonial Control and Visions of Rule", 1989

Ferguson

  • Discuss the following statement: “Ferguson was neither distrustful of wealth nor did he believe that it invariably retarded social virtue and a free society”. Ronald Hamowy, The Political Sociology of Freedom: Adam Ferguson and F.A. Hayek, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2005, p. 83.
  • The State of Nature in Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society
  • The paradox of progress in Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society
  • "Ferguson was well aware of the role of unintended consequences in the process of social change." Craig Smith, "Ferguson and the active Genius of Mankind" in Adam Ferguson: History, Progress and Human Nature, edited by Eugene Heath and Vincenzo Merolle, London: Pickering & Chatto, n° 4, 2008, p. 165

Locke

  • La force de l'habitude dans Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Milton

  • Freedom and knowledge in Milton's Areopagitica
  • "[Milton] appears first as a regicide rather than as a republican." (Thomas N. Corns, 1995)

Morris

  • Culture du peuple et culture de l'élite
  • News from Nowhere : le mariage
  • News from Nowhere : romantisme ou révolution ?

Parti libéral

  • “Lloyd George’s attempt to perpetuate the politics of coalitionism and national unity [after the war] was ultimately doomed by developments external to the Coalition and by its disintegration from within”, David Powell, British Politics, 1910-1935: The Crisis of the Party System, London: Routledge, 2004, 90.
  • The Liberal Party, 1906-1924: division and unity
  • Discuss the following statement: “Unless Liberalism is to be sterilized for effective action, it is therefore manifest that Liberals must now

‘face the music’. We have to destroy the power of the Lords to kill, mutilate or unduly delay Liberal measures.” J.A. Hobson, The Crisis of Liberalism: New Issues of Democracy, London: P.S. King and Son, 1909, p. 20.

  • “The war and its aftermath uprooted the political world that Liberals had understood and substituted something which seemed by comparison brash, cheap and contemptible”. Michael Bentley, The Liberal Mind 1914-29, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977, p. 1.
  • “[Lloyd George and Asquith] may be accused of dividing their party in its later years of decline. Equally clearly, together they generated the authority that transformed the fractious ranks of post-Gladstone Liberals for several years into an incomparable party of government.”

Kenneth O. Morgan, “Asquith and Lloyd George: Architects or Assassins?”, p. 122-136 dans Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique, volume 16.2, 2011, p. 136.

Schisme d'Henri VIII

  • "Henricianism was not simply a call to England ti disown Rome's jurisdiction but, in its largest terms, a promise of radical and necessary renewal of the whole commonwealth." J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, Methuen, 1968, p.327.
  • Pragmatisme et dogmatisme dans la Réforme henricienne
  • "So far from attempting to build a despotism in England, Thomas Cromwell was that country’s first parliamentary statesman." (G.R.Elton, England under the Tudors, 1955)
  • Le schisme et la politique étrangère de l'Angleterre (1521-1540)
  • “ I am very sorry to know and hear, how unreverently that most precious jewel the word of God is disputed, rhymed, sung and jangled in every alehouse and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same. ” (Henry VIII’s speech to Parliament, December 1545, in Edward Hall, Henry VIII, 1548.)
  • “ The [Henrician] Reformation is part of the laymen’s revolution. For centuries the Church had dominated every part of the nation’s life, even its military activity. Now the laymen were determined to bring that domination to an end. ” (Stephen Neill, Anglicanism, 1958, p. 34.)
  • “ The piecemeal Reformation was a peaceful Reformation. ” (Christopher Haigh, The English Reformation Revised, 1987.)
  • “ The English Reformation was emphatically a political revolution, and its author King Henry VIII resisted, for a time ferociously, many of the religious consequences which accompanied the legal changes everywhere else in Europe. ” (Owen Chadwick, The Reformation, 1964.)
  • “ The Henrician Reformation and the creation of the royal supremacy turned the Church in England (…) into the Church of England. ” (G.R. Elton, England under the Tudors, 1955.)
  • La Réforme henricienne : un catholicisme sans le pape ?
  • Via media et raison d’Etat
  • Henri VIII et la raison d'Etat
  • Henri VIII et la propagande

Civilisation américaine

Années Roosevelt

  • Discuss the following statement: “Enough help had been given to enough people to make Roosevelt a hero to millions, but the same system that had brought depression and crisis—the system of waste, of inequality, of concern for profit over human need— remained.” Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, New York: Harper Collins, 2005 (1980), pp. 403-4.
  • Centralization in the Roosevelt years.
  • Discuss the following statement: “Above all, the New Deal gave to countless Americans who had never had much of it a sense of security, and with it a sense of having a stake in their country. And it did it all without shredding the American Constitution or sundering the American people.” David M. Kennedy, Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 379.
  • Discuss the following statement: “Most obviously, the liberalization of the Democratic Party under Roosevelt and the New Deal realignment led to the development of a modern welfare state and a transition from legislative to executive-oriented legislation.” Sidney M. Milkis, “Roosevelt and the Transcendence of Partisan Politics”, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 100, No. 3 Autumn 1985,p. 498.
  • Discuss the following statement: “In making a state of procedures that organized political life at home, and in creating an assertive state that crusaded almost without limit for American power and values, the New Deal proved to be a rejuvenating triumph.” Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time, New York: Liveright, 2013, p. 475.
  • Discuss the following statement: “Principal legacies of the New Deal have been a massive expansion of government power and loss of liberty.” Jim Powell, FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and his New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression, New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003, p. xiv.
  • Discuss the following statement: “By using the new materials of social justice we have undertaken to erect on the old foundations a more enduring structure for the better use of future generations.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937.
  • Discuss the following statement: “As wartime commander in chief, Roosevelt could exert power over the American economy and society transcending any he had previously wielded, even in the first heady days of the New Deal.” James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: the Soldier of Freedom, New York: Harcourt, 1970, p. 417.
  • Discuss the following statement: “From an ideological standpoint, the New Deal was illogical. But from a political standpoint it was marvelous. Its very inconsistency facilitated its appeal to a broad range of otherwise mutually hostile groups.” Thomas K. McCraw, “The New Deal and the Mixed Economy,” in Fifty Years Later: The New Deal Evaluated. Harvard Sitkoff, ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985,p. 63.
  • Inter-partisan conflict in the Roosevelt years.
  • Innovation in the Roosevelt years.
  • "One of the most lasting contributions was to open up the political process to previously excluded groups of interests and voters. As such, historians often speak of a New deal for blacks or labor, or various ethnic groups. Equally, there was a New Deal for women." Susan Ware, "Women and the New Deal", in Fifty Years Ltaer: The New Deal Evaluated, 1985.

Contre-culture

  • Discuss the following statement: “To start with a banality: a lot happened in the 1960s. And the historiography of the era has come to mirror that banal observation. The Sixties had become a capacious subject, so much so that, I have come to think, we have lost the “Sixties” in writing about the Sixties.” David Farber, review of Robert Cohen’s Freedom’s Orator: Mario Savio and the Radical Legacy of the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), in Reviews in American History 39 (2011), pp. 712-717.
  • Sexual Politics in the counterculture.
  • Analysez et discutez la citation suivante : “The 1960s [...] legitimized civil disobedience as a tactic on the part of loyal citizens excluded from the conventional channels of power and social change.” John P. Diggins, “Civil disobedience in American political thought”, in Luther S. Luedtke (ed.), Making America. The Society and Culture of the United States, Washington: USIA, 1987, p. 353.
  • "Everyone knows about the peace, love, grass and groovy music but the counterculture was always more complicated – edgier, darker, and more tied to the dominant culture – than most anyone at the time could see." Alice Echols. Shaky Ground, the Sixties and its Aftershocks, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, p. 18.
  • Discuss the following statement: “The counterculture was a way of life, a community, an infrastructure, and even an economy, not just a

few lifestyle accoutrements like long hair and an occasional toke on illegal substances.” David Farber, The Age of Great Dreams, America in the 1960s, New York: Hill and Wang, 1994, p. 169.

L'Empire de l'exécutif

  • The Reagan Presidency: restoration, renovation, revolution?
  • "presidents are set too far above the people to be at one with them" (Bruce Miroff, 2006)

Le Sud de l'après-Guerre de Sécession

  • “One reads the truer deeper facts of reconstruction with a great despair. It is at once so simple and human, and yet so futile. There is no villain, no idiot, no saint. There are just men.” W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, New York: S. AL Russell, 1935), p.728
  • Violence in the South after the Civil War.
  • Analysez et discutez : “Rather than simply emphasizing conservatism and continuity, a coherent portrait of Reconstruction must take into account the subtle dialectic of continuity and change in economic, social, and political relations as the nation adjusted to emancipation.” Eric Foner, “Reconstruction Revisited,” Reviews in American History, Vol. 10, December 1982, p. 87.
  • “Rather than passive victims of the action of others or simply a ‘problem’ confronting white society, blacks were active agents in the making of the Reconstruction.” Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, New York: Harper and Row, 1988, xxiv
  • Re-visions of Reconstruction

Mencken

  • Mencken: the sage of Baltimore
  • Mencken sociologue
  • H.L. Mencken : un réactionnaire ?

Olmsted

  • Nation, Union and Landscape in Frederick Law Olmsted’s thought and action.
  • Discuss the following statement: “[...] Olmsted’s parks seemed to offer an attractive remedy for the dangerous problem of discontent among the urban masses. In contrast with other reforms put forward by the gentry, they visibly affected the everyday habits of large numbers of people. By providing pleasant and uplifting outlets in the narrow lives of city-dwellers, they promised a measure of social tranquillity”. Geoffrey Blodgett, “Frederick Law Olmsted: Landscape Architecture as Conservative Reform”, Journal of American History, Vol. 62, No. 4, March 1976, p. 877.
  • Discuss the following statement: “Olmsted’s great urban, pastoral-style public parks, from Louisville to Buffalo, from Boston to Brooklyn, stand as living monuments to and embodiment of the idealist proposition that there is a pre-established harmony between the forms of nature and the human heart and mind and that proper character formation as well as individual and collective human happiness are dependent upon that synergism.” George L. Scheper, “The Reformist Vision of Frederick Law Olmsted and the Poetics of Park Design”, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 62, No. 3, September 1989, p. 372.
  • Discuss the following statement: “One of the great ills of modern society, [Olmsted] argued, is a nervous disability caused by the stress of urban life and exacerbated by the artificiality of the city environment. The most effective antidote to this sickness, he was convinced, was a certain kind of scenery. The purpose of the urban park (as opposed to the whole range of other kinds of public recreation grounds that he designed) was to provide the scenery that most effectively counteracts and cures this nervous affliction.” Charles E. Beveridge and Carolyn F. Hoffman, “Introduction” in Charles E. Beveridge and Carolyn F. Hoffman (eds.), The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Supplementary Series, volume I, The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore and London, 1997, pp. 5-6.
  • Democracy, progress and parks in Frederick Law Olmsted’s thought and action.

"Thus without means are taken by government to withhold them from the grasp of individuals, all places favorable in scenery to the recreation of the mind and body will be closed against the great body of the people. For the same reason that the water of rivers should be guarded against private appropriation and the use of it for the purpose of navigation and otherwise protected against obstruction, portions of natural scenery may therefore properly be guarded and cared for by Government. To simply reserve them from monopoly by individuals, however, it will be obvious, is not all that is necessary. It is necessary that they should be laid open to the use of the body of the people." Frederick Law Olmsted, Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A Preliminary Report (1865)

The Federalist Papers

  • The Federalist then was able to claim that the Constitution of 1787 was ‘republican,’ by changing the concept of republicanism from notions of smallness and personal citizenparticipation into an idea of ‘responsibility’ of elected magistrates, into an idea of personal

accountability for all actions committed in office, into an idea of government somehow representative and responsible in all of its parts, not just in its legislature.” Patrick Riley, “Martin Diamond’s View of ‘The Federalist’”, Publius, Vol. 8, No. 3, Dimensions of the Democratic Republic: A Memorial to Martin Diamond (Summer, 1978), p.94.

  • Pragmatism in The Federalist
  • “To the Federalists, the move for a new central government became the ultimate act of the entire Revolutionary era; it was both a progressive attempt to salvage the Revolution in the face of its imminent failure and a reactionary effort to restrain its excesses.” Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1969, p.475.
  • Division in The Federalist Papers

Thomas Jefferson et l'ouest

  • L'expédition de Lewis et Clark : une épopée américaine ?

Linguistique

Segments de tronc commun

  • a cool cavern of a chemists's
  • A great many of my patients
  • A Lancashire comedian's face
  • A silence
  • A tiny hamburger is what the fungus resembles
  • haven't been speaking
  • He'd seen arrive
  • He seems to have concluded that you are in excellent shape
  • Humiliated awareness
  • I do want to know what you propose to do
  • I insist
  • if that's what you're worrying about
  • It's not an easy skill to learn
  • may not really be
  • Might
  • Must be doing
  • must have
  • No Saturday-night drunk
  • Preparing our little home for us
  • she has never wished she were anyone other than herself
  • That she would never fall in love with Mitchell and marry him
  • That's what frigthens me
  • the room she grew up in
  • this fund-raiser
  • thought it rather comical
  • what they want
  • when everything was right
  • You needn't worry
  • You're not inviting

Option C

DO

  • Certains linguistes, comme Martin JOOS dans The English Verb (1964), rejettent la notion de « DO emphatique » : "the inserted DO has no meaning whatever, contrary to the school tradition which calls it emphatic". Dans quelle mesure peut-on considérer cette position comme justifiée ? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • Quel rôle les constructions en DO jouent-elles dans la cohésion discursive ? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en prenant en compte le corpus ci-joint.

Ellipse et anaphore

  • « Un segment de discours est dit anaphorique lorsqu’il est nécessaire, pour lui donner une interprétation (même simplement littérale), de se reporter à un autre segment du même discours. » Ducrot et Todorov, Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences du langage, 1972, p.358. Discuss.
  • “Anaphora is often treated as if it were an inter-sentence level occurrence subject to the criterion of grammaticality. […] But it is arguable that this procedure results in a quite serious distortion of the facts of discourse level anaphora as well as deixis. First anaphora, even of the ‘bound’ variety, is an utterance-level phenomenon, not a sentence-level one (or ‘intersentence’, in the case of discourse anaphora). For it is particularly sensitive to aspects of the context of utterance of the segment in which the anaphor at issue occurs, as well as to its lefthand and right-hand co-text.” Cornish, Anaphora, Discourse and Understanding. Evidence from English and French, 1999, p.1. Discuss.
  • From the fact that a full noun phrase cannot be bound by an antecedent (in the sense given to the word in Binding Theory), Liliane Haegeman concludes that unlike personal pronouns and bound anaphors, “a full nominal expression refers independently. […] We can say informally that a lexical NP is able to select a referent by virtue of its inherent properties.” Haegeman, Introduction to Government and Binding Theory, 1991, p.190. Discuss.
  • In The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, Huddleston and Pullum remark: “Do so is an idiom: its meaning and syntactic properties cannot be derived by combining those of do and so. Do it and do that/this, however, are not idioms: their meaning and properties can be

predicted from those of do and the NP as used in other combinations.” Huddleston and Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, 2002, p.1532. Discuss.

  • “[L]orsque le même nom pourrait apparaître une deuxième fois dans une phrase, il est remplacé par ONE après un déterminant ou adjectif.

Take this chair, I’ll sit on that one” Roggero, Grammaire anglaise, 1979, p.181. Discuss.

  • “People often avoid repeating words when they are referring back. This is called ellipsis.” John Sinclair et al, Collins Cobuild English Grammar, 1992, p.335. Discuss.

Expression du degré

Les deux sujets sont mis en forme de telle sorte qu'il est plus aisé de les lire directement en suivant le lien proposé.

  • Sujet tiré de l'ouvrage de Huddleston et Pullum
  • Sujet tiré d'un article de Gilles Fauconnier
  • “(i) Comparison – or rather its result – rests on two basic concepts: resemblance and identity. Suppose I saw two cats in my garden on two separate occasions. If I want to compare them, there are, basically, three types of comparison I can make: I can say that they resemble each other (this of course is resemblance), or that they are one and the same cat (this is identity), or that they do not resemble each other (this is the negation of resemblance, but mayimply that of identity). In language, the difference between identity and resemblance is sometimes blurred (for instance in As I said... / Like I said...), but, as we shall see, there is no ambiguity in asand sofrom that point of view: what they express is identity – or more precisely a variety of identity, based on comparison, which can be called identifying comparison.” Paul LARREYA, “On the semantics of SO and AS”, Sigma, 17-18, 1996, p. 100. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “Adjectives and adverbs whose meanings are inherently superlative such as unique and perfect are prescriptively banned from comparative and superlative marking. They are sometimes heard in conversation however, and intensified by ‘absolute’ most : a most perfect example.” Angela Downing and Philip Locke, English Grammar: A University Course (2nd ed.), London & New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 486. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “Absolute adjectives such as full (vi) (or exhausted (iv)), for example, can be subject to a certain amount of intensification, which does not contradict their claim to be absolute. The intensification merely has the effect of stretching the absolute values they possess.” Axel Hübler, Understatements and Hedges in English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1983, p. 41. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “Distributionally, the class of gradable adjectives has two defining characteristics [...]. First, gradable adjectives can be modified by degree adverbials such as quite, very and fairly. According to this criterion, inexpensive, dense, and brightare identified as gradable adjectives, but dead, octagonal, and former are not [...]. Although non-gradable adjectives like deaddo sometimes occur with degree modifiers, as in e.g., Giordano is quite dead, such uses are marked, and tend to convey a sense of irony or humor. Such uses indicate that (at least some) non-gradable adjectives can be coerced into having gradable interpretations in contexts that are otherwise incompatible with their canonical meanings. The second distributional characteristic of gradable adjectives is that they can appear in a class of complex syntactic environments, which I will refer to as degree constructions. Roughly speaking, a degree construction is a construction formed out of an adjective and a degree morpheme – an element of {er/more, less, as, too, enough, so, how, ...}.” Christopher KENNEDY, Projecting the Adjective: the Syntax and Semantics of Gradability and Comparison, London: Routledge, 1999, p. xiv. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “Intensifiers typically add little or no lexical meaning of their own to the noun phrase of which they form a part. A perfect gentleman is perfect, of course, in a sense; but one who is truly a gentleman already has this degree of perfection, and all that the addition of perfect accomplishes is to underscore it by repetition. The essential redundancy of the relatively ungrammaticized intensifiers can be seen by comparing their use with their omission after such– there is little or no difference in semantic content: He is such a bore! = He is such a dreadful bore! They made such an obeisance = They made such a profound obeisance! It was such a success! = It was such a profound success! He gave me such a stare! = He gave me such a fixed stare!” Dwight Bolinger, Degree Words, The Hague: Mouton, 1972, p. 153-4. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “Yet we encounter somewhat facile generalizations concerning the behaviour of individual words in terms of their gradability, and also the tendency to treat the category of gradability as a rather rigid one, marking individual words either [+ gradable] or [- gradable]. In this paper I challenge that position and want to show that adjectives such as dead, married, and pregnant, which are often cited as non-gradables par excellence, are actually used as gradables. At the same time I propose that gradability be redefined as a ‘squishy’ category but not as an ‘either-or’ feature.” Kazuo KATO, “Gradable gradability”, English Studies 67, 1986, p. 174. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “At first sight, this [= markers of differentiation in exclamatory utterances] poses a major problem for Culioli’s theory, based as it is on such concepts as self-reference and identification, leading to scanning and centering. [...] What we have here is only another mode of exclamation, which I see as complementary to the one described by Culioli 1974.I call it paradoxical because it is based, if I may put it this way [...], on self-differentiation. This is quite obvious in examples such as (27) Avec la lessive X, votre linge est plus blanc que blanc! (28) He’s taller than tall! [...] What such utterances express is that the quantity [of the given quality] is so great that the quality itself is at issue. The notion and the word chosen to refer to it are no longer considered sufficient to express the high degree the speaker (the utterer, to be more precise) has in mind.” Renaud MÉRY, “Exclamation and the expression of high degree in English and some Romance languages”, Contrast, Comparison and Communication, Travaux du CIEREC XCVI, 1999, p.41. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “Paradis (2001) also provides a number of empirica larguments that the distribution of degree modifiers correlates with the scalar properties of gradable adjectives, though she does not develop a semantic analysis of modifiers or a formal characterization of adjectival scale structure to account for these facts.” Christopher KENNEDY and Louise McNALLY, “Scale Structure, Degree Modification, and the Semantics of Gradable Predicates”, Language, Vol. 81, No. 2, Linguistic Society of America, June 2005, p. 348n. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “When these items [minimizers] occur in positive contexts (if they do), they denote a minimal quantity, when they occur in negative contexts, the negation denotes the absence of a minimal quantity, and hence the presence of no quantity at all.” Laurence R. Horn, A Natural History of Negation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989, p. 400. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “‘Equal to’ may be defined as the quantitative application of the qualitative ‘same as’, ‘more than’ and ‘less than’ being the two possible kinds of quantitative ‘different from’.” Edward SAPIR, “Grading, A Study in Semantics”, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr.), 1944, p. 105. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “Les échelles par lesquelles on peut représenter les qualités/propriétés graduables sont fondamentalement des continuums orientés vers le ‘haut’ (vers le ‘plus’), c’est-à-dire vers un degré plus élevé de la propriété dont il s’agit (grand est orienté vers immense, petit vers minuscule). L'argument essentiel en faveur de cette orientation réside dans l'emploi dit ‘absolu’ des termes graduables. Dans l’usage quotidien, chaud est graduable, et on peut établir une différence entre deux objets déclarés ‘chauds’ tous deux, mais à des degrés différents. Il reste alors à définir le sens du prédicat ‘être chaud’, et on ne peut le faire sans poser la mise en jeu d’une norme: ‘Jean aime le café chaud’ signifie (sauf contraste contextuel entre ‘café chaud’ et ‘café glacé’) : ‘Jean boit son café plus chaud que ne font la plupart des gens’. Le locuteur se réfère implicitement à une norme de chaleur valable pour le type d’objet dont il parle, et qui est censée correspondre à une représentation installée dans la communauté linguistique. De façon plus évidente peut-être, un homme intelligent renvoie à un homme d'une intelligence supérieure à une certaine moyenne. L'information véhiculée par l’emploi absolu de l’adjectif n'est pas elle-même ‘absolue’, mais relative à un certain seuil-repère (qui reste implicite). Le fait crucial est ici que l’emploi absolu de grand dénote toujours une taille supérieure à une certaine norme. On peut noter aussi qu’il suffit de rapprocher un objet pourvu d’une propriété d’un autre objet du même type (possédant aussi la propriété à un degré quelconque) pour asserter une supériorité de cet objet sur l’échelle dont il s’agit : Jean est grand à côté de Pierre. Il serait difficile d’expliquer ces faits sans postuler non seulement une orientation des échelles sémantiques mais, plus précisément, une échelle orientée vers un degré plus grand de la propriété considérée.” René Rivara, “Pourquoi il n'y a que deux relations de comparaison”. In Faits de langues n°5, March 1995, pp. 26-27. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.
  • “In combination with neutral adjectives, such as long, short, small, diminishers conjure up an interpretation of non-desired excess. The neutral adjectives have no internal end-point. The end-point is inferred by the diminisher, and they get an interpretation of excess by implication, e.g. That skirt is a bit short (to wear at work), meaning ‘a bit too short’. Adjectives which are unambiguously positive are strange with diminishers, e.g. ?a bit good.This is only natural since it is less likely for positive adjectives like goodthan for neutral adjectives like long to express non-desired excess.” Carita Paradis, “It’s well weird: degree modifiers of adjectives revisited”, Corpora Galore: Analyses and Techniques in Describing English. Papers from the 19th International Conference on English Language Research on Computerised Corpora (Icame 1998), Ed. John M. Kirk (Amsterdam: Rodopi B. V.), 2000, p. 2. Discuss. Candidates will use relevant excerpts from the following corpus to address the above topic.

HAVE

  • Pour Larreya, have exprime une relation à trois termes : un ‘contenant – c’est-à-dire l’univers du sujet – et deux ‘contenus’. Lorsqu’il utilise le terme d’empathie, entendu comme rattachement à la sphère personnelle’, c’est pour parler de la relation qui existe entre les deux ‘contenus’ : ‘Have, contrairement à be, ne peut pas servir à localiser n’importe quel objet : pour que l’emploi de have soit possible, il faut qu’il y ait une certaine ‘empathie’ entre le référent du sujet de have et l’objet ‘localisé’. » Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • Pierre Cotte, reprenant des analyses de A. Wierzbicka et R. Dixon, propose que dans les constructions have + a + verbe (have a drink, have a walk, etc.) le procès est réduit quantitativement : il ne désigne jamais une aptitude ou une activité générale, mais un événement ; par ailleurs le procès évoqué doit avoir une certaine durée, mais celle-ci est nécessairement réduite ; le procès lui- même doit donc être simple et la construction ‘have a verbe’ représenterait un échantillon où se concentre l’essence du procès. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • L’idée d’un lien de type transformationnel entre des constructions ‘locatives’ comme ‘there is an engine in the car’ et des constructions ‘possessives’ comme ‘the car has an engine in it’ a été exploitée aussi bien par des générativistes, que par des énonciativistes. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • La valeur de localisation serait, pour certains linguistes, la valeur première pour toutes les constructions avec BE ou avec HAVE. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • Pour certains linguistes anglo-saxons, tels que R. McCoard, HAVE auxiliaire dans la construction have –EN n’hérite quasiment pas des traits sémantiques du HAVE ‘lexical’, mais véhicule simplement un sémantisme d’antériorité ou de résultat : « What is the particular contribution of have as an auxiliary? […] Those who bother themselves with this question tend to speak either in terms of a meaning of ‘anteriority’ to a contextually designated temporal locus, or else in terms of ‘completion’ or ‘result’.” Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • "Dynamic have. This is a lexical verb in all varieties of English: He had a swim / he had it painted. It has none of the auxiliary properties. As the label ‘dynamic’ indicates, it expresses an event rather than a state.” Huddleston & Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, p.111. Le candidat discutera ces affirmations en se fondant sur le corpus ci-joint.
  • « Have permet de spécifier une propriété « logée » dans le sujet grammatical ». H. Adamczewski, Grammaire linguistique de l’anglais, p. 113. Le candidat discutera cette affirmation en se fondant sur le corpus ci- joint.
  • « [Avoir] a, hors sa fonction d’auxiliaire, une construction libre qui est celle d’un verbe actif pareil à tous les autres, avec une rection transitive d’objet. » Cette affirmation de Benveniste (PLG1 194) concernant avoir vaut-elle pour have ? Le candidat traitera cette question en se fondant sur le corpus ci-joint.
  • “In colloquial English I have got (I’ve got) has to a great extent lost the meaning of an ordinary perfect and has become a real present with the same meaning as I have (‘have in my possession’) ; and in the same way the pluperfect I had got (I’d got) has come to be a notional

preterit.[…] Have got cannot, however, be used everywhere instead of have.” O. Jespersen, A Modern English Grammar, part IV, 4.2(1) & 4.3(1) p. 103. Le candidat discutera cette affirmation en se fondant sur le corpus ci- joint.

  • « Il existe un certain nombre d’emplois dans lesquels HAVE exprime non pas un état mais une action » Larreya et Rivière, Grammaire explicative de l’anglais, 3e édition, 3.6 (p. 28). Le candidat discutera cette affirmation en se fondant sur le corpus ci- joint.
  • “Both [10iii], Ed asked to read the report, and [10iv], Ed had read the report, have only a single subject, but there is nevertheless a major difference between them. In the semantic interpretation of [iii] we understand Ed to be an argument of both the verbs […] but we cannot similarly attribute two distinct roles to Ed in [IV]. […] Ask takes an argument subject, whereas have takes a non-argument subject. Huddleston & Pullum, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, p.1211. Le candidat discutera cette affirmation en se fondant sur le corpus ci- joint.
  • Comment peut-on rendre compte des différences de sens et d’emploi des expressions obtenues à partir des mêmes éléments HAVE SOMETHING TO DO / HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ? Le candidat s’appuiera sur le corpus joint pour répondre à la question posée.
  • Selon un linguiste français, have marque une relation entre un élément repère thématisé qui est le sujet, et un élément repéré qui est le COD syntaxique. Have invite le co-énonciateur à considérer l’incidence pour le sujet de cette mise en relation. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • E. Benveniste affirme, dans Problèmes de linguistique générale, vol. 1, p. 194 : « [...] hors de la fonction d’auxiliaire, la construction de être est prédicative ; celle d’avoir transitive. » A la page 200 du même article, il affirme : « La construction transitive de avoir le sépare de être. Mais cette construction est toute formelle, elle ne classe pas avoir dans les verbes transitifs. » Ces propos sont- ils contradictoires? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • "Called to the ‘auxiliarihood’ because of their semantic content these verbs must respond to this call in a curious fashion : by getting rid, to a greater or lesser extent, of this very semantic matter." W. H. Hirtle, 'Auxiliaries and Voice in English', Les Langues Modernes (4), 1965, p. 25. Dans quelle mesure cette remarque s'applique-t-elle à have ? Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • "Si have attribue une inclusion statique ou dynamique à un référent thématisé on comprend maintenant qu'il se passive peu. Il n'a plus de raison d'être si celui- ci n'est pas le sujet de l'énoncé." Cotte, Grammaire linguistique, p.50 Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.

Irréel

  • Certaines formes verbales exprimant une opinion ou un jugement permettent-elles en elles-mêmes d’exprimer le non-réel, ou l’expression du non-réel exige-t-elle l’intervention de paramètres supplémentaires ? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en prenant en compte le corpus joint.
  • La distinction irréel/potentiel a-t-elle une pertinence pour décrire les conditions introduites par IF? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s'appuyant sur le corpus joint.

IT

  • Les emplois de IT dans les énoncés suivants ont parfois été qualifiés d'"explétifs" : They doubt it very much that you will go / it is obvious that the world is round. Dans quelle mesure cette étiquette métalinguistique vous paraît-elle appropriée ?
  • Dans quelle mesure peut-on soutenir que IT dans les phrases clivées et extraposées a une valeur cataphorique ?
  • Quand IT réfère, il réfère à du non humain, discutez.
  • Est-il possible de dire que le IT, que certains grammairiens anglophones nomment "prop IT", "dummy IT", ou encore "expletive IT" ne réfère vraiment pas ?
  • Certains linguistes, comme Dwight Bolinger dans Meaning and Form (1977:76), rejettent la notion de “IT explétif” : 'expletive' it retains at least some valuebeyond that of plugging a grammatical hole.' Dans quelle mesure peut-on considérer cette position comme justifiée ?
  • Dans quelle mesure peut-on penser que IT est la trace d'un contenu sémantique minimal ?
  • Le IT de l’extraposition est-il dépourvu de toute valeur référentielle ?
  • Un linguiste a pu dire : « Avec he, she et it le référent est distingué (catégorisation du genre), abstrait (reprise minimale) et il est reconstruit en une seule opération. La particularité de it est de rendre le réfèrent anonyme.»
  • On a pu dire que : "[…/…] The word IT is a third person singular pronoun. However, this word also has other roles which are not related to its pronominal use. […/…] When we talk about time or the weather, we use sentences such as: What time is it? Here, we cannot identify precisely what it refers to. It has a rather vague reference, and we call this DUMMY IT or PROP IT. Dummy it is also used, equally vaguely, in other expressions: Take it easy!" http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/minor/dummy.htm Discutez.
  • Dans quelle mesure peut-on penser que IT a une fonction essentiellement syntaxique ?
  • On trouve chez Quirk et al. (1985) l'étiquette anticipatory IT dans le cas des clivées et des extraposées. De leur côté, Larreya et Rivière (1999 : 226) parlent, pour des exemples comme It's no use telling him et He found it difficult to open the door, d'un IT qui "annonce une proposition". Discutez cette position.
  • Dans Meaning and Form (1977:75) Dwight Bolinger, affirme que "IT is the pronominal neuter counterpoint of the definite article". Discutez.
  • Dans quelle mesure peut-on, à l’instar de THERE, qualifier IT d’élément « postiche » (dummy element) ?
  • Selon les linguistes Paul et Carol Kiparsky, "The pronoun it serves as an optional reduction of the fact. […] This it […] should be distinguished from the expletive it, a semantically empty prop which is automatically introduced in the place of extraposed complements."('Fact' dans Semantics, 1970: 361) Discutez.
  • Dans quelle mesure le genre du pronom IT permet-il d’expliquer ses emplois textuels ?
  • Dans Meaning and Form (1977 : 67), Bolinger affirme que "to be anaphoric, IT must refer to some fact already broached". Discutez.
  • « Les verbes sans actant expriment un procès qui se déroule de lui-même, sans que personne ni rien y participe. C’est essentiellement le cas de ceux qui désignent des phénomènes météorologiques. [...] On ne saurait tirer objection des phrases françaises, il pleut, il neige, où il semble être un actant. Car il n’est en réalité que l’indice de la 3ème personne et ne désigne nullement une personne ou une chose qui participerait d’une façon quelconque au phénomène de la pluie » [L. Tesnière. Éléments de syntaxe structurale. 1988. p. 106.] Dans quelle mesure cette réflexion relative au français peut-elle s’appliquer à l’anglais ?
  • “A cleaving of a sentence by means of it is (often followed by a relative pronoun or connective) serves to single out one particular element of the sentence and very often, by directing attention to it and bringing it, as it were, into focus, to mark a contrast. [...] it is and the following connective are considered as a special kind of extraposition.” (O. Jespersen. A Modern English Grammar, VII, Allen, 1965 [1942], p. 147-48) Discutez.
  • Discutez cette affirmation de A. Radford (Transformational Grammar. A First Course, C.U.P., 1988), à propos des exemples It is raining / It is a long way to Dallas / It’s time to leave / It is obvious that you’re right, ainsi que, entre autres, de There must have been some

mistake : “These Pronouns are called ‘pleonastic’ (which means ‘redundant’) in traditional grammar because (in their pleonastic use, but not in other uses) they are felt to be (in some vague intuitive sense) ‘semantically empty’ and thus cannot have their reference questioned (cf. What is raining? *Where must have been some mistake?)”

  • On a pu dire que IT it opère une reprise allégée à distance » et qu’à ce moment-là, « le référent est totalement acquis et intériorisé par l’énonciateur ». Discutez.
  • Selon un linguiste français, le prédicat « DO IT est […] la marque de la reprise de la notion du prédicat antérieur ». Dans quelle mesure cette assertion vous semble-t-elle éclairer le fonctionnement de IT ?

Passif

  • The passive voice and transitivity.
  • Although the choice of passive over active is not open, there are different discourse motivations which are conditioned by the immediate contextual environment. With the option of packaging the information differently in the passive, the speaker can use, the beginning or the end-position of a clause to emphasize his or her statements. (Anika Onken, "Bare passives and Relative Clauses" in Be-passive Forms as Modifiers, 2008, p.4).
  • The fact that a difference of meaning expressed by copula + complement vs the passive compound is discernible without difficulty in most cases, raises the question of how the two constructions differ. (Walter Hirtle, Lessons on the English Verb, 2007, p. 262).
  • The Passive is one type of construction that modifies the verbřs argument structure.
  • The passive auxiliary is normally be. Its only serious contender is get, which however is not, by most syntactic criteria, an auxiliary at all. Moreover, get tends to be limited to constructions without an expressed animate agent. (R. Quirk, S.Greenbaum et al., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, 1985, pp.160-161).
  • The be-passive is stylistically neutral but get-passives are a mark of informal style. They are used for describing situations where the subject-referent is involved in bringing the situation about, or where there is an adverse or beneficial effect on the subject-referent. If no such factor is present, only the be-passive is acceptable. (Huddleston & Pullum, Introduction to English Grammmar, 2005, p. 245).
  • Concerning agentless passives, Huddleston (1984, p. 441) observes: ŖThe agent is a freely omissible element of clause structure: there are no cases where the rules of syntax require an agent to be present. In this respect, it is quite different from the subject of the activeŗ.


Prépositions

  • “It has often been noticed that prepositions of time are on the whole identical to spatial expressions and that temporal PPs are attached to sentences in the same way as PPs of location." JACKENDOFF 1983, 189. Discuss.
  • “The ideal meaning of a preposition is a geometrical idea, from which all uses of that preposition derive by means of various adaptations and shifts.” A.Herskovits, Language and Spatial Cognition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 39. Discuss.
  • “It is a challenge for any theory of word meaning to explain why a polysemous word such as on has the variety of physical and figurative uses that it has. One might argue that figurative uses of on such as Pam is on a diet, The lunch is on George, The bus is on schedule, etc., are just ‘dead metaphors’, in other words arbitrary unmotivated uses that are not related in any way to each other or to the physical uses of on.” D. Beitel, A. Gibbs, W. Raymond, Paul Jr. & SANDER, “The embodied approach of the polysemy of the spatial preposition on” in H. Cuykens, B. Zawada, (eds), Polysemy in cognitive linguistics, Oxford: Amsterdam, Benjamins,, 2001, p. 241-260. Discuss.
  • « To est une préposition d’origine déictique à fonctionnement spatial (PIE *do- : « to/toward ») qui est utilisée pour conférer au SN qui suit une valeur télique. Son rôle est de désigner le référent de l’argument régi comme un point d’aboutissement. Elle s’oppose en cela à from, qui dénote l’origine, et les deux prépositions permettent de borner le procès. »

Dominique Boulonnais, « Les emplois prépositionnels de To et de For, Grammaticalisation et subjectification », ANGLOPHONIA/SIGMA 24, 2008. Discuss.

  • In A Grammar of Contemporary English, Quirk & al. remark : “A sentence like He looked at the girl can be given two analyses. In one, there is a prepositional phrase (at the girl) as adverbial; in the other, looked at is a prepositional verb with girl as prepositional object. (We use the shorter term ‘prepositional object’ for what should properly be termed ‘object after a prepositional verb’.) ANALYSIS 1: V A He [looked] [at the girl]. ANALYSIS 2: prep-V prep-O He [looked at] [the girl]. The two analyses can be regarded as different, but equally valid and complementary ways of looking at the same structure.” A Grammar of Contemporary English, Quirk & al. London: Longman, 1972, pp. 818-9. Discuss.
  • In the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, Douglas Biber & al. remark: « An important distinction can be drawn between free v. bound prepositions. Free prepositions have an independent meaning; the choice is not dependent upon any specific words in the context. In contrast, bound prepositions often have little independent meaning, and the choice of the preposition depends upon some other word (often the preceding verb). The same prepositional form can function as a free or a bound preposition:

Free prepositions: But the only other thing perhaps, he’ll go with one of the kids, and that’s a possibility. […] Bound prepositions: They’ve got to be willing to part with that bit of money. […]. » Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Biber, Douglas & al. London: Longman, 1999, p. 74.Discuss.

  • In his grammar (Grammaire anglaise, [1981] 1988), Jacques Roggero remarks « les verbes transitifs et prépositionnels […] peuvent être suivis d’un complément direct ET d’un complément prépositionnel. La structure du groupe verbal est alors V – GN – Prép. – GN. He borrowed / a little aspirin / from the nurse. He thanked / the nurse / for the aspirin. They sent / the boy / to a comprehensive school. a. Certains de ces verbes, dont le type est GIVE, présentent deux possibilités : ou bien conserver la structure GN – Prép. – GN, ou bien la transformer en déplaçant le second complément avant le premier, et en supprimant la préposition. Ci-dessous les exemples (b) sont à relier aux exemples (a) et ont la même signification : (a) He gave a lot of money to the school. (b) He gave the school a lot of money. (a) The nurse read a story to the children. (b) The nurse read the children a story.

Ce déplacement de la préposition est également possible lorsque la préposition est FOR. I will book a seat for you. I will book you a seat. » Grammaire anglaise. Paris : Nathan, [1981] 1988, p. 19. Discuss.

  • "Many place prepositions have abstract meanings which are clearly related, through metaphorical connection, to their locative uses." (R. Quirk, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, 1985, p. 685). Discuss.
  • Prepositions are either static or dynamic. Discuss.
  • Infinitive nominal clauses and potentiality. Discuss.
  • Concerning prepositions of time, R. Quirk et al. remarks : "At, on, and in as prepositions of 'time location' are to some extent parallel to the same items as positive prepositions of position, although in the time sphere, there are only two 'dimension-types', viz. 'point of time' and 'period of time'. (A University Grammar of English, R. Quirk et al., Longman, 1st edition, 1973, p. 154)
  • In Cognitive English Grammar (2007: 307-27), Radden & Dirven note that "notions of spatial dimension are expressed in English by topological, or dimensional prepositions": zero dimensional: at the corner [point]/one-dimensional: on the border [line]/two-dimensional: on the table [surface]/three-dimensional: in the bottle [container]. Later they remark that topological prepositions may also refer to "domains other than physical space", like "time", "circumstance", "cause", "reason" and "purpose" (i.e. "abstract space"). Discuss.

Structures causatives

  • “In the have causative, the causer assumes the causee’s ‘readiness to serve’; the causee is treated here as a cooperative performer of the causer’s will, as someone to whom the causer’s will can be communicated (either directly or by an intermediary) and who will be neither unable to understand it or unwilling to perform it.” Cette assertion, de A. Wierzbicka (The Semantics of Grammar, 1988) s'applique-t-elle à toutes les structures causatives ? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s'appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • D’après un linguiste français, « HAVE exprime bien la causalité : le Sujet S1 fait se réaliser la deuxième relation Sujet/Prédicat [...]. Avec HAVE, le causateur (Sujet1) est un animé humain. La causation est intentionnelle. HAVE signale (comme dans son emploi en tant qu’auxiliaire) que le sujet grammatical se trouve affecté par ce qui suit. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s'appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • La sémantique générative a avancé l’idée qu’un certain nombre de constructions verbales aurait, en structure profonde, un prédicat sémantique abstrait CAUSE. Ainsi, un verbe transitif comme kill serait analysé comme un verbe causatif classique : KILL: [CAUSE (x, [BECOME (y, [DEAD])])] / MAKE: [CAUSE (x, [DO (y, [SOMETHING])])] Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • “On distingue parfois le factitif, qui exprime une action que l’on fait faire à quelqu’un, spécifié ou non, et le causatif, qui exprime un état résultant de l’action que l’on a fait.” Dictionnaire de linguistique, Dubois et al, Larousse, 1973. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • « Une structure causative peut être définie comme la transformée d’un énoncé simple, de forme SV(O), par addition d’un argument supplémentaire qui sera vu comme le sujet déclencheur de la relation prédicative de départ » . Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s'appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • D'après un linguiste français, have, contrairement à be, ne peut pas servir à localiser n'importe quel objet. : pour que l'emploi de have soit possible, il faut qu'il y ait une certaine ‘empathie’ entre le référent du sujet de have et l'objet ‘localisé’. Discutez cette affirmation. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • Peut-on dire que dans les énoncés dits “causatifs”, HAVE ne marque pas lui-même la causation ? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s'appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • Elisabeth Cottier conclut son article sur « Les opérateurs causatifs de l’anglais : make, cause, have et get » par la remarque suivante : […] Chaque opérateur n’est pas représentatif, de façon univoque, d’un type de valeur et d’un seul, mais il est potentiellement associable à un faisceau de valeurs (plus ou moins restreint selon l’opérateur – make étant le plus polyvalent). page 125, (1991) in Cahiers de Recherche T.5 Grammaire anglaise, Ophrys, p.85-126. Commentez à la lumière des données fournies par le corpus proposé.
  • Si les structures causatives ont des caractéristiques communes, ces caractéristiques sont-elles toutes des caractéristiques formelles ? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s'appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • « Si le nombre des actants est augmenté d’une unité, on dit que le nouveau verbe est causatif par rapport à l’ancien. (…) Le nouvel actant est toujours, sinon l’agent immédiat du procès, du moins, (…) son instigateur. » L. Tesnière, Éléments de syntaxe structurale, Klincksieck, 1959. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • De nombreux linguistes affirment que la “diathèse causative” se réalise sous diverses formes, analytiques ou synthétiques. Quels sont, selon vous, les critères qui fondent ce point de vue ? Etayez votre réponse à l’aide du corpus joint.
  • Dans les constructions causatives, le choix du verbe causatif et la construction du prédicat reflètent le degré de coercition exercé. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • D’après un linguiste français, « Comme avec make suivi d’une proposition infinitive, le sujet de cause est l’origine véritable de la validation de la relation prédicative, mais cette origine est non-volontaire. [...] Figureront donc en position sujet d’énoncé des non-animés non humains. [...] avec cause, on s’intéresse à l’origine du procès, et non au résultat comme avec make. L’orientation est donc contraire. » Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s'appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • “In English, the morphological reflex of “causativization” (adding a causative argument) happens to be Ø, but what it does is add an external argument to the verb.”(www.bu.edu/linguistics/UG/course/ lx700-s01/handouts/lx700-7-achains.ppt). Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • Causative constructions refer to complex predicates formed by the combination of a causative event with an underlying predicate. The addition of the causative verbal element also adds a new participant (a causer), which initiates or controls the event of the underlying predicate. Typologically, several diverse methods are used for forming causatives[…/…]. Some causative constructions appear as a single morphological word, while others are formed periphrastically by adding a causative verb to the base predicate. Structurally, certain causative predicates behave as mono-clausal constructions denoting direct causation, while others display properties of a biclausal construction and represent an

indirect causation of the underlying event. Karine Megerdoomian http://ling.ucsd.edu/~karinem/. University of California San Diego. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.

  • Quelles contraintes s’exercent sur le choix du sujet causateur et du sujet causativé dans les structures causatives ? Vous répondrez en vous appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • Dans The Right Word, Vuibert, 1959, Lionel Guierre affirme que le choix entre les différentes constructions causatives se réduit, en fin de compte, à la difference entre un sens ‘actif’ – She made her brother read the book – et un sens ‘passif’ : He had his watch fixed. Dans quelle mesure est-ce que cette affirmation vous semble justifiée par les faits de l’anglais ? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s’appuyant sur le corpus joint.
  • English causative verbs are governed by two different causative models, viz. the transitive and the ergative model. These models presuppose different participant

constellations, which determine the constructional possibilities. Maarten Lemmens http://www.univ-lille3.fr/silex/equipe/lemmens/research-1-2.htm. Discutez. Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en s'appuyant sur le corpus ci-joint.

Subordonnées nominales en TO

  • [T]he infinitive evokes an event, and to, the movement from an instant situated before this event up to the instant at which the event begins. (P. Duffley, The English Infinitive, 1992, p.17).
  • Nominal clauses function in a way similar to noun phrases, in that they may function as subjects or objects/complements in the main clause. (Ronald Carter & Michael McCarthy, Cambridge Grammar of English, 2007, p.565).
  • On pourrait dire que ce qui sépare to des membres de la classe des modaux, cřest le fait que to ne dit rien sur les chances de réalisation de la prédication alors que les modaux, par nature, sont des instruments de modalisation interne, qui renferment un certain programme sémantique en plus de leur rôle plus formel au niveau de la prédication prédicative. Bref, it est absolument neutre quant à la réalisation effective de la soudure prédicationnelle. (Henri Adamczewski, Grammaire linguistique de l‟anglais, 1982, p.16).
  • The TO-infinitive clause usually has no subject, although its subject is implied by the context." (G. Leech, A Glossary of English Grammar, 2006, p. 113). Discuss.
  • L'absence de sujet devant la forme non finie est généralement ramenée à un phénomène de co-référence, mais la non co-référence est tout à fait licite après certains verbes. Un exemple de non co-référence avec TO et l'infinitif apparaît dans des exemples qu'on peut considérer

comme des exemples de discours rapporté, say étant avant tout un prédicat qui introduit un contenu propositionnel sans que les relations intersubjectives soient prépondérantes." (A. Deschamps, in Morphosyntaxe du lexique 1, Travaux du Cerlico n°15, 2002, p. 31-46). Comment.

  • I propose that all readings come from the inherent intentional reading of the [to]-complement interacting with contextual semantic factors such as governing predicate, modality and time." (J. Bresnan, 1979, Theory of Complementation in English Syntax, p.88). Comment.
  • In Syntax, Vol. 2 (2001: 40), Givón writes: "Defined in the broadest semantic terms, verbal complements (V-Comp) are clauses that function as subject or object arguments of other clauses. But the resemblance between verbal complements and nominal arguments is only partial. At best, one may say that verbal complements are constructed by analogy with clausal subjects and objects. a. She wanted an apple / b. She wanted to eat an apple. Since the prototype subject or object is nominal, it is only natural that complement clauses, even when not fully nominalized, should display some facets of non-finite, nominalized syntax." Explain, discuss and exemplify using relevant examples from the corpus.
  • By definition, assertion is exclusively a function of finite verbs; and whatever is done by non-finites - e.g. by that non-finite called Řinfinitive,ř such as to leave, to rain - will not be called assertion. (Joos, The English Verb, 1964, p. 14).

Sujet

  • Discutez cette affirmation du linguiste français A. Gauthier (Opérations énonciatives et apprentissage d'une langue en milieu scolaire, Les Langues Modernes, 1981), à propos de la relation paraphrastique entre There are fish in the pond et The pond has fish in it : "Dans les tournures locatives, la non-coïncidence entre RE [repère énonciatif] et TD [terme de départ / thème] se manifeste dans le positionnement linéaire sous forme d'une dissociation […] justifiée par l'absence […] d'un élément suffisamment déterminé pour servir de repère constitutif à l'ensemble de l'énoncé."
  • Selon le linguiste Otto Jespersen, "It is no wonder that after all this purposeless talking about logical [semantic] and psychological in [topic] subjects some writers have tried to avoid the term subject altogether […]. Nothing, however, is gained by this. It is much better to retain the traditional terms, but to restrict them to domains where everybody knows what they import, i.e. to use subject and predicate exclusively in the sense of grammatical subject and predicate, and to discountenance any proposals to attach to these words the adjuncts 'logical' and 'psychological'". (The Philosophy of Grammar, 1992 (1924), p.150). Discutez cette affirmation.
  • Peut-on dire que la présence d’un sujet est une condition nécessaire à la bonne interprétation d’un énoncé ? Le candidat traitera le sujet ci-dessus en prenant en compte le corpus ci-joint.
  • "The identity of the subject can be tested in an independent declarative clause through a whquestion with who or what. The subject is the element that can be replaced in its normal position by the wh- item […] Other elements require fronting, and subject-operator

inversion." Quirk et al, A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, 1985, p. 726. Discutez cette affirmation.

  • Nous pouvons dire que le sujet relève d’une problématique sémantique : « Le sujet est l’argument obligatoire qui instancie les traits sémiques fondamentaux du verbe. [...] Cette définition sémantique est liée au fait que le contenu sémique du verbe est donné minimalement par le nombre d’arguments qu’il a et par le fait que l’adjonction ou le retrait d’un argument modifie le contenu sémique. [...] Cette définition notionnelle du sujet doit s’enrichir d’une réflexion sur les rôles sémantiques, c’est-à-dire la part que prend le référent du sujet et des autres « actants » au processus. » [Geneviève Girard. « La notion de sujet : une notion à définir ». 2003.] Discutez.
  • « Parmi les nombreuses études de [la] structure (there + be + syntagme nominal), plusieurs sont consacrées plus précisément à l’organisation thématique de ces phrases — souvent considérée comme une ré-organisation — , laissant entendre que la forme syntaxique de cette structure est le résultat d’un processus d’extraposition qui permet de modifier la linéarité de la forme canonique (SVO) de la phrase anglaise. » [Nigel Quayle. « Sujet et support dans les phrases existentielles en anglais ». 2003] Discutez.
  • Dans leur grammaire de 1985, Quirk et al. affirment à la page 724 : “Of the clause elements other than the verb, the subject is the most important in that (except for the verb) it is the element that is most often present.” Discutez ce point de vue.
  • Selon le linguiste R. Huddleston "The grammar makes available a variety of different ways of expressing the same proposition so that at a particular point in a spoken discourse or written text we can select a form that is appropriate in the light of our assumptions about what information the addressee(s) will already possess, of what parts of our message we wish to emphasise or focus upon, of the contrasts we wish to draw, and so on". Discutez.
  • Le sujet doit-il toujours être exprimé pour qu’il y ait « prédication » ?
  • Discutez l’affirmation suivante du linguiste Daniel Kies : "Traditional grammar books and school grammars often define the subject along semantic lines: they refer to the subject as “what the sentence is about” or as “the topic of the sentence” or as the “actor performing the action described by the verb”. […/…] However, such definitions are misleading, since those older definitions blend and conflate different ideas that are best understood if kept apart." http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/engl_126/clause.htm
  • Selon le linguiste M.A.K. Halliday, "There is a close semantic relationship between information structure and thematic structure. Other things being equal, a speaker will choose the Theme from what is Given, and locate the focus, the climax of the New, somewhere

within the Rheme. But although they are related, Given+New and Theme+Rheme are not the same thing. The Theme is what I, the speaker, choose to take as my point of departure. The Given is what you, the listener, already know about or have accessible to you. Theme+Rheme is speaker-oriented, while Given+New is listener-oriented. But both are, of course, speaker-selected". M.A.K. Halliday, 1985, An Introduction to Functional Grammar, p.299 Dans quelle mesure ces remarquent se rattachent-elles à l aproblématique du sujet.

  • Selon l’Encyclopédie Bartleby (http://www.bartleby.com), "English sentences usually have a subject and a predicate; subjects are nouns or other nominals, and in the most typical English sentence pattern, the subject will precede the verb and will agree with it in number. In active

voice sentences, the subject is the doer of the action indicated by the verb". Discutez.

  • Dans quelle mesure un sujet peut-il être considéré comme non canonique ?
  • Dans quelle mesure la fonction sujet est-elle associée au nominatif ?
  • “At the general level the subject may be defined as that functional element in the structure of the clause that prototypically expresses : (i) the semantic role of agent, and (ii) the presentational status of topic.” [Huddleston and Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the

English Language, Cambridge: CUP. 2002. p. 235] Discutez.

  • Selon les linguistes Christine Cheepen et James Monaghan, "Any utterance must communicate to the hearer something he doesn't know in terms of something he does know". Cheepen & Monaghan,1990, Spoken English, a Practical Guide, p.26. Dans quelle mesure cette remarque se rattache-t-elle à la problématique du sujet ?
  • Dans quelle mesure peut-on penser que l'interprétation du rôle sémantique du sujet dépend du sémantisme du verbe ?
  • “… The acual use of an inversion is often far from being a choice ; under many contextual conditions an inverted sentence is almost unacceptable, while only others, quite specific ones, make the choice of an inversion really preferable. ” (Dorgdeloh, Heidrun, 1977 “Inversion in Modern English, Form and Function”, John Benjamin ed. SiDag, 6, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, p.97).Discutez.
  • Dans leur grammaire de 1960 (p. 26), Thomson et Martinet décrivent la forme des pronoms en ces termes : Nominative pronouns are used: i) as subjects of a verb. / ii) as complements of the verb to be. The accusative form is used:i) as direct object of a verb. / ii) after prepositions. Discutez.