Sémantique et diachronie du système verbal français (review)

Stemming from a conference held at Aston University in 2003, this edited volume presents a very welcome collection of ten papers on a topic which goes to the morpho-syntactic heart of the contemporary French language, by exploring the development underlying usage of a very comprehensive range of morphological markers of tense, aspect and modality in both contemporary and earlier varieties of French. Most of the articles adopt a long-developmental perspective, tracing the changes underlying use of various forms from Old French through Middle and Classical French to contemporary varieties. Those forms concern the simple future which Gérard Joan Barcelo explores in relation to the modalization of its value from both historical and cross-linguistic perspectives; the present and imperfect subjunctives which Igor Dreer constrasts in terms of the differential contextual features which (dis)favour their usage between contemporary and old French; expressions of progressivity which Lene Schøsler investigates in terms of (de)grammaticalization processes whereby French is exceptional in displaying the unusual loss of an analytical form as a more synthetic form emerged; the passé simple and the passé composé whose contemporary usage is traced by Patrick Caudal and Carl Vetters to differential stages of diachronic change in their pragmatic and semantic usage, while Anne Judge provides historical insights into the pragmatic changes that have given rise to 'occasional' passé simple usage in contemporary French, although its semantic values have, in the main, remained unchanged. From a more global perspective, Janice Carruthers and Sophie Marnette compare the aspectuo-temporal system at work in the néo-conte and medieval narratives. The 'short' longitudinal perspective is exemplified by Emmanuelle Labeau, who quantifies the decline in use of the passé simple in written journalistic sports reports, while Bénédicte Facques also draws on journalistic texts to provide a synchronic analysis which distinguishes use of the historical present from the 'présent de reportage'. A remaining tense form investigated is that of the imparfait, which Jacques Bres compares in terms of the aspectual and anaphoric approaches which have been the source of much debate. Apart from the individual focus on specific forms, the remaining chapter by Carlota Smith provides a number of salient issues to the volume as a whole, by exploring the role of context in interpreting the characteristics of 'tense' in contemporary French from a cross-linguistic perspective. Special attention is paid to the issue of atemporal values in the French verb morphological system, as well as to the ambiguity surrounding the temporal and modal values of the simple future form. Taken as a whole, the individual chapters provide very comprehensive insights into a vast issue. Minor criticisms relate to the missed opportunity to consider the findings in relation to more general theoretical models of language change, as well as the scope to relate the issues to spoken French — as it stands, quantitative studies in the volume are the exception rather than the norm, while the supporting evidence is generally based on qualitative analyses of literary and journalistic written texts. In nicely complementing some sociolinguistic studies of similar issues, however, the book is a must-read for all interested in tense and aspect.