Be to, grammaticalisation et ambiguïté énonciative

As the title indicates, this paper addresses the issues of grammaticalization and ambiguity, and the relation between the two, in the case of the be to construction.As a verbal periphrasis devoid of any lexical element, only to be found in the simple present and simple preterite (*be to, *being to,...

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Main Author: Françoise Lachaux
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires du Midi 2012-11-01
Series:Anglophonia
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/acs/12626
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author Françoise Lachaux
author_facet Françoise Lachaux
author_sort Françoise Lachaux
collection DOAJ
description As the title indicates, this paper addresses the issues of grammaticalization and ambiguity, and the relation between the two, in the case of the be to construction.As a verbal periphrasis devoid of any lexical element, only to be found in the simple present and simple preterite (*be to, *being to, *been to), and so very concise as to be labelled as “minimalist”, be to raises several challenging questions, concerning its alledged closeness to passive constructions (such as be supposed to / be expected to), and its superficial morphological similarity with have to.The apparent absence of any marks of involvement on the speaker’s part, together with the cognitive gap created by the lack of lexical basis, leave a vacuum on the semantic and pragmatic levels: could grammaticalization be linked with some strategy of concealment and implicit modality?
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publishDate 2012-11-01
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spelling doaj-art-4ac288a158734a1f8f857a178dac941c2025-01-30T12:33:27ZengPresses Universitaires du MidiAnglophonia1278-33312427-04662012-11-011616518210.4000/anglophonia.198Be to, grammaticalisation et ambiguïté énonciativeFrançoise LachauxAs the title indicates, this paper addresses the issues of grammaticalization and ambiguity, and the relation between the two, in the case of the be to construction.As a verbal periphrasis devoid of any lexical element, only to be found in the simple present and simple preterite (*be to, *being to, *been to), and so very concise as to be labelled as “minimalist”, be to raises several challenging questions, concerning its alledged closeness to passive constructions (such as be supposed to / be expected to), and its superficial morphological similarity with have to.The apparent absence of any marks of involvement on the speaker’s part, together with the cognitive gap created by the lack of lexical basis, leave a vacuum on the semantic and pragmatic levels: could grammaticalization be linked with some strategy of concealment and implicit modality?https://journals.openedition.org/acs/12626pragmaticssemanticsgrammaticalizationagentivitypresuppositionambiguity
spellingShingle Françoise Lachaux
Be to, grammaticalisation et ambiguïté énonciative
Anglophonia
pragmatics
semantics
grammaticalization
agentivity
presupposition
ambiguity
title Be to, grammaticalisation et ambiguïté énonciative
title_full Be to, grammaticalisation et ambiguïté énonciative
title_fullStr Be to, grammaticalisation et ambiguïté énonciative
title_full_unstemmed Be to, grammaticalisation et ambiguïté énonciative
title_short Be to, grammaticalisation et ambiguïté énonciative
title_sort be to grammaticalisation et ambiguite enonciative
topic pragmatics
semantics
grammaticalization
agentivity
presupposition
ambiguity
url https://journals.openedition.org/acs/12626
work_keys_str_mv AT francoiselachaux betogrammaticalisationetambiguiteenonciative