Semantic Studies of French Noun Phrase Expressions and Their Application to Contrastive Studies

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K00569
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Nagoya University
• Principal Investigator: Okuda Tomoki 名古屋大学, 人文学研究科, 准教授 (20293722)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 意味論 / 名詞句表現 / 「義務および可能」 / 「結果」 / 「方向性」

Outline of Final Research Achievements

A detailed semantic analysis of French "N a V-type noun phrases" was conducted after classifying their usage into three major categories: "obligation and possibility," "result," and "direction. For "obligatory and possible," we clarified the connection between the meanings of "obligatory" and "possible," and discussed the mechanism by which each of these meanings appears. The nature of the case in which "a V" becomes "a ne pas V" was also clarified. As for "result," we noted that this kind of usage of "a V" can be found in cases other than noun phrases, and proposed a hypothesis about the formation process of the noun phrase in question, which we verified. As for "direction," we pointed out its semantic adjacency with "obligatory and possible," while presenting the view that the "a V" part is an indicator of the classification of N.

Free Research Field

フランス語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

言語学において、モダリティ(発話において話し手の主観を述べる部分)に関する研究は、これまで動詞を中心とする文のレベルで行われることが多かったが、本研究はこれを名詞句のレベルで行うという点で、新たな学術的価値を有する。また、これまでのフランス語の名詞句表現研究の多くは、類型論的記述を目指すものや限定辞と名詞との意味的関連に注目したものであり、名詞句自体の意味内容に積極的に踏み込んだものは少なかった。本研究は、そうした方向性の研究の一つのモデルケースともなり得るものである。さらに、本研究で得られたフランス語に関する成果は、他言語の名詞句表現研究や対照言語学的研究にも貢献し得るものである。