Accord sujet / verbe et constructions syntaxiques : approche diachronique
Résumé
In this article we aim to study the relationship between the subject position and agreement phenomena, from a diachronic point of view. Relying on texts of Old and mainly Middle French, we will try to highlight the emergence of a dissymmetry, as concerns subject-verb agreement, between SVX and XVS schemas, and how this modifies the status of the preverbal zone. We will examine three different constructions : impersonal, pronominal and passive constructions, which display certain common features. Then we will focus on the semantics of nominal subjects, in order to determine the respective influence of semantic and syntactic factors, as regards both subjects and verbs, and how they interfere with the ongoing syntactization of the discourse organization in the sentence.