Ajustement, alternance et intégration codique chez les Palikurs de l'Oyapock : questions de méthode et premiers résultats

National audienceUne étude des situations d’obtention des formes de passage d’une langue à l’autre dans les pratiques linguistiques des Palikurs, en interrogeant simultanément ces pratiques d’alternance, à tous les niveaux langagiers ou linguistiques

Les signes comme accès et comme contraintes

International audienceSituer le travail de Pierre Cadiot, c’est reconnaître qu’à l’opposé des linguistiques de flux comme la grammaire générative, qui croient pouvoir réduire la sémantique à la seule étude de la combinatoire des éléments lexicaux présupposés, il considère que rendre compte de la génération du lexique est une tache incontournable de la linguistique, ce qui fait de l’étude de la polysémie un point de départ obligé à la fois de la sémantique et de la linguistique. Présenter sa démarche et ses conséquences impose d’introduire la thèse de l’indexicalité de la signification développée par Pierre Cadiot en en montrant les très larges conséquences théoriques de cette thèse, de montrer que l’idée selon laquelle « les mots sont des accès » a comme corollaire le fait que les signes introduisent seulement des contraintes sémantiques à satisfaire et que l’intégration sémantique, c’est-à-dire la mise en relation de différents signes dans les mots, les syntagmes, les phrases ou les énoncés, repose sur la mise en relation des contraintes en question

Challenges in endangered language lexicography

International audienceWhen it comes to endangered minority languages, lexicography is faced with specific limits and challenges. Based on our field lexicography experience and on the writing of a Palikur (Arawakan, French Guyana) dictionary, this paper aims to present some of the shortcomings of dictionary production, and what should and could be done to address the specific challenges which have to be met. First of all, we shall discuss several frequent limits (of) small language dictionaries, namely: i) the absence/scarcity of available corpora; ii) the use of an onomasiological approach for word collection, through a kind of enlarged Swadesh list methodology; iii) the consequent reduction of dictionaries to mere lexical lists; iv) the consequent risk of minoring the lexical specificities of a language by using pre-determinate lists of things or notions to be named. Secondly, we shall advocate for an approach to field lexicography centred on the collection of the most rapidly vanishing parts of the vocabulary, and insist on the strategies which can be used in order to do so, defending the necessity to overcome the lexicographer’s absence of expertise in many fields of knowledge by promoting multidisciplinary field work. This issue will be illustrated by the example of the “biolexicon” (plants, insects, etc.) in Palikur. Finally, we shall tackle word translation issues, and the risk to produce either hyperonymic lexicographical descriptions or precise (but unusable for the reader) equivalents. We shall show how these constraints should lead to a semi-encyclopaedic lexicographical approach

Interprétabilité ou grammaticalité ? les listèmes comme interface entre sémantique et morphologie

La question de l’interface entre sémantique et morphologie est abordée en trois étapes. D’abord en montrant que si la sémantique a pour objet comme c’est le cas de rendre de la diversité des emplois des signes et de la façon dont ils sont associés interprétativement, elle inclut de fait la plupart des objets morphologiques. Ensuite que ce fait interroge avant tout la possibilité pour la morphologie de définir une sémantique autonome ainsi que les conceptions du sémantique parfois singulières qui ont pu y être défendues. Enfin en montrant que le listage de la plus grande partie du lexique, autrement dit le fait de le déclarer imprédictible, tient au seul fait que sa prédictibilité repose de part en part (polysémie, polycatégorialité, listèmes) sur son interprétabilité, qui elle-même repose in fine sur la satisfaction de contraintes sémantiques. Chacune des étapes donne lieu à des analyses détaillées, qui concernent notamment le caractère sémantiquement inacceptable d’un ensemble de postulats et de raisonnements considérés comme axiomatiques par beaucoup de morphologues, la nécessité d’abandonner la conception saussurienne pour une conception post-benvenistienne du signe, et, très longuement, la façon dont l’ensemble des listèmes du français qui comportent le morphème re-, de rechigner à rétorquer et de réciproque à rendre, s’avèrent prédictibles et sémantiquement interprétables par les mêmes mécanismes et hypothèses qui sont nécessaires pour rendre compte de non-listèmes apparents comme relire ou repousser. L’article conclut sur le fait que parce qu’ils sont interprétables et ne sont à ce titre jamais considérés comme mal formés, les listèmes, loin d’être des objets à ignorer et à apprendre un par un, constituent une fenêtre extraordinaire sur la réalité des mécanismes qui conduisent à la génération du lexique et de sa polysémie.In order to clarify the semantics/morphology interface, three issues are considered. The first one is to show that if, as it has been the case within linguistic semantics, semantics is defined as dealing with issues such as accounting for the diversity of the uses of signs and the way they become interpretatively associated, it indeed includes most morphological objects. The second one is that this implies to question the possibility for morphology to define its own semantics and to stick to some very specific and disputable beliefs about semantics. The third part consists in the demonstration that listing of most of the lexicon for its supposed unpredictability is the mere consequence of the fact that its predictability, from polysemy to polycategoriality and listemes, is in fact a matter of interpretability, and thus ultimately of satisfaction of semantic constraints. Each of these three claims are detailed, for instance by explaining why many postulates and lines of reasoning which have been transformed into axioms by many morphologists are unacceptable from a semantic point of view, by defending the necessity to drop the saussurean characterization of meaning and signs and to adopt a post-benvenistian one, and finally, and extensively, by showing that all French listemes which include morpheme re-, from rechigner to rétorquer and from réciproque to the polysemy of rendre, may ultimately be proven to be semantically predictable and interpretable on the same ground and using the same hypotheses which have to be made to account for allegedly non-listemes such as relire or repousser. The paper concludes that it is precisely because they are interpretable and therefore never considered as ill-formed, that listemes, far from being objects which could be ignored and would have to be learnt one by one, are in fact a remarkable path to the understanding of the real nature of the mechanisms which accounts for the generation of the lexicon and its massive polysemy

Prosodie non-structurale et plurisémie

L’article a comme objet à la fois d’interroger la place de ce que nous nommons « prosodie non-structurale » (et « prosodie lexicale libre » quand celle-ci est lexicalisée) dans l’étude de l’interface sémantique/pragmatique, et de montrer que celle-ci condamne définitivement les conceptions linéaires de l’interprétation (Grice, Sperber et Wilson, Borg). Après avoir défini PNS et PLL, il démontre, à l’aide d’exemples authentiques mais qui sont aussi prosodiquement des paires minimales, la dimension plurisémique de l’interprétation linguistique, le choix de ce type de données permettant à la fois d’isoler de façon incontestable le rôle de la prosodie dans l’interprétation et d’éviter les problèmes sémantiques liés au caractère artefactuel des paires minimales. Est ainsi prouvé que PNS et PLL sont des contraintes proprement linguistiques pesant sur l’interprétation, et qu’il est possible d’inscrire dans une théorie générale des descripteurs sémantiques celle des descripteurs prosodiques isolés, et que l’impossibilité d’ignorer leur existence impose une modélisation non linéaire et non modulaire de l’interface sémantique/pragmatique qui reconnaisse que les contraintes prosodiques se situent en amont de tout le processus interprétatif et pèsent aussi bien sur l’interprétation de ce qui est dit que sur l’interprétation de ce qui est dit de ce qui est dit.Non-structural prosody and plurisemy. The paper aims at questioning the role of “non-structural prosody” (and its lexical counterpart “free lexical prosody”) in the study of the semantic/pragmatic interface, and at showing that such a role condemns and dismantles the linear approach to interpretation defended, among others, by Grice, Sperber and Wilson and Borg. After defining NSP and FLP, it shows, using authentic examples which are also prosodic minimal pairs, the truly plurisemic dimension of linguistic interpretation. It also shows that it is only with this type of data that: i) the role of prosody in interpretation can be proven; ii) it becomes possible to avoid the interpretatively artefactual nature of the non-authentic minimal pairs. Leading to the conclusion that NSP and FLP are truly linguistic constraints on interpretation, and allowing their modelization within a general theory of semantic descriptors. It is then shown that the impossibility to ignore the existence of NSP and FLP imposes a non linear and non modular modelization of the semantic/pragmatic interface, with a capacity to acknowledge the fact that prosodic constraints are, within the interpretation process, upstream constraints which play simultaneously a leading role in the interpretation of both “what is said” and “what is said about what is said” (and hence “what is communicated”)

A Ralstonia solanacearum type III effector directs the production of the plant signal metabolite trehalose-6-phosphate

The plant pathogen Ralstonia solanacearum possesses two genes encoding a trehalose-6-phosphate synthase (TPS), an enzyme of the trehalose biosynthetic pathway. One of these genes, named ripTPS, was found to encode a protein with an additional N-terminal domain which directs its translocation into host plant cells through the type 3 secretion system. RipTPS is a conserved effector in the R. solanacearum species complex, and homologues were also detected in other bacterial plant pathogens. Functional analysis of RipTPS demonstrated that this type 3 effector synthesizes trehalose-6-phosphate and identified residues essential for this enzymatic activity. Although trehalose-6-phosphate is a key signal molecule in plants that regulates sugar status and carbon assimilation, the disruption of ripTPS did not alter the virulence of R. solanacearum on plants. However, heterologous expression assays showed that this effector specifically elicits a hypersensitive-like response on tobacco that is independent of its enzymatic activity and is triggered by the C-terminal half of the protein. Recognition of this effector by the plant immune system is suggestive of a role during the infectious process.Ralstonia solanacearum, the causal agent of bacterial wilt disease, infects more than two hundred plant species, including economically important crops. The type III secretion system plays a major role in the pathogenicity of this bacterium, and approximately 70 effector proteins have been shown to be translocated into host plant cells. This study provides the first description of a type III effector endowed with a trehalose-6-phosphate synthase enzymatic activity and illustrates a new mechanism by which the bacteria may manipulate the plant metabolism upon infection. In recent years, trehalose-6-phosphate has emerged as an essential signal molecule in plants, connecting plant metabolism and development. The finding that a bacterial pathogen could induce the production of trehalose-6-phosphate in plant cells further highlights the importance of this metabolite in multiple aspects of the molecular physiology of plants

Indexicalité, unification contextuelle et constitution extrinsèque du réfèrent

The aim of this paper is to propose what we call an indexical-indicial theory of lexical meaning. The diversity of uses of individual words calls for a conception where only relational properties are coded. Contextual interpretations (which can of course be conventionnal and specifically memorized) are values over such coded functions.Nemo François. Indexicalité, unification contextuelle et constitution extrinsèque du réfèrent. In: Langages, 37ᵉ année, n°150, 2003. La constitution extrinsèque du référent, sous la direction de Pierre Cadiot et Franck Lebas. pp. 88-105

Les points de vue comme strate interprétative

The aim of this paper is to show, in relation with Pierre-Yves Raccah’s work, the general existence of a specific interpretative layer, linguistically built to a large extent and which concerns the marking and lexicalization of viewpoints. After recalling the distinction between polysemy and plurisemy (defined as the multi-layered interpretation associated with any use of a word), the argumentative layers at stake (associated with the mechanism of controlled attention and the constraint of scalarity), and the impact of prosody on viewpoints are presented. It is then shown that viewpoints are not limited to argumentative layers and play a crucial role in the determination of the reference of noun phrases. Importantly, is demonstrated on a wide range of examples that the extensional interpretation of such elements is indeed produced by the predicative element (to the point that a negated predicate can be proven to negate something different that what is found in its positive counterpart). Furthermore, in all the examples which are provided, such “semantic restrictions” by the predicate appear to be anchored into specific ways to see the world. This imposes to overcome the alternative between a perspective-free language / world relationship and a world-free language / viewpoint relationship. The world is what is behind the way we access to it, and because languages do not have the capacity to make such viewpoints invisible, they are fully part of the interpretation process, for understanding them is compulsory to have access to what they veil