A Formal Analysis of the French Temporal Connective <i>alors</i>
This paper presents an analysis of the French adverbial alors (then, at that time, so). Among the linguistic markers that establish a temporal relation between the eventualities introduced by two clauses, we define as \textit{temporal connectives} those that introduce at the same time some sort...
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2009-01-01
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doaj-b85e73139a7e46b18688c2d8f2a17aa92020-11-25T03:29:04ZengUniversity of OsloOslo Studies in Language1890-96392009-01-011110.5617/osla.10A Formal Analysis of the French Temporal Connective <i>alors</i>Myriam Bras0Anne Le Draoulec1Nicolas Asher2University of ToulouseUniversity of ToulouseUniversity of ToulouseThis paper presents an analysis of the French adverbial alors (then, at that time, so). Among the linguistic markers that establish a temporal relation between the eventualities introduced by two clauses, we define as \textit{temporal connectives} those that introduce at the same time some sort of discourse relation. We argue that alors can be such a connective. Within the framework of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory, our investigation concerning the discourse information conveyed by sentence initial alors reveals at least three sorts of relations close to the Result relation of SDRT. Alors alone conveys a weak causal relation, which we formalize using Lewis’ counterfactual, and encode in the discourse relation Weak-Result. We distinguish it from Strong-Result, which is inferred when lexical or other contextual information suggests a causal, discursive link. We also show that alors can, when Weak-Result is blocked, suggest an inferential relation, which we express using the weak conditional already present in SDRT.https://journals.uio.no/osla/article/view/10 |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Myriam Bras Anne Le Draoulec Nicolas Asher |
spellingShingle |
Myriam Bras Anne Le Draoulec Nicolas Asher A Formal Analysis of the French Temporal Connective <i>alors</i> Oslo Studies in Language |
author_facet |
Myriam Bras Anne Le Draoulec Nicolas Asher |
author_sort |
Myriam Bras |
title |
A Formal Analysis of the French Temporal Connective <i>alors</i> |
title_short |
A Formal Analysis of the French Temporal Connective <i>alors</i> |
title_full |
A Formal Analysis of the French Temporal Connective <i>alors</i> |
title_fullStr |
A Formal Analysis of the French Temporal Connective <i>alors</i> |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Formal Analysis of the French Temporal Connective <i>alors</i> |
title_sort |
formal analysis of the french temporal connective <i>alors</i> |
publisher |
University of Oslo |
series |
Oslo Studies in Language |
issn |
1890-9639 |
publishDate |
2009-01-01 |
description |
This paper presents an analysis of the French
adverbial alors (then, at that time, so). Among the
linguistic markers that establish a temporal relation between the
eventualities introduced by two clauses, we define as \textit{temporal
connectives} those that introduce at the same time some sort of
discourse relation. We argue that alors can be such a
connective. Within the framework of Segmented Discourse
Representation Theory, our investigation concerning the discourse
information conveyed by sentence initial alors reveals at
least three sorts of relations close to the Result relation of SDRT.
Alors alone conveys a weak causal relation, which we formalize
using Lewis’ counterfactual, and encode in the discourse relation
Weak-Result. We distinguish it from Strong-Result, which is inferred
when lexical or other contextual information suggests a causal,
discursive link. We also show that alors can, when Weak-Result
is blocked, suggest an inferential relation, which we express using the
weak conditional already present in SDRT. |
url |
https://journals.uio.no/osla/article/view/10 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT myriambras aformalanalysisofthefrenchtemporalconnectiveialorsi AT anneledraoulec aformalanalysisofthefrenchtemporalconnectiveialorsi AT nicolasasher aformalanalysisofthefrenchtemporalconnectiveialorsi AT myriambras formalanalysisofthefrenchtemporalconnectiveialorsi AT anneledraoulec formalanalysisofthefrenchtemporalconnectiveialorsi AT nicolasasher formalanalysisofthefrenchtemporalconnectiveialorsi |
_version_ |
1724580914389843968 |