The Grande Grammaire du Français Project

We present a new reference Grammar of French (La Grande Grammaire du français), which is a collective project (gathering around fifty contributors), producing a book (about 2200 pages, to be published en 2011) and associated databases. Like the recent reference grammars of the other Romance Languages, it takes into account the important results of the linguistic research of the past thrity years, while aiming at a non specialist audience and avoiding formalization. We differ from existing French grammar by being focused on contemporary French from a purely descriptive point of view, and by taking spoken data into account. We include a description of all the syntactic phenomena, as well as lexical, semantic, pragmatic and prosodic insights, specially as they interact with syntax. The analysis concerns the data from contemporary written French, but also includes data from spoken corpora and regional or non standard French (when accessible). Throughout the grammar, a simple phrase structure grammar is used, in order to maintain a common representation. The analyses are modular with a strict division of labor between morphology, syntax and semantics. From the syntactic point of view, POS are also distinguished from grammatical relations (or functions). The databases include a terminological glossary, different lexical databases for certain POS, certain valence frames and certain semantic classes, and a bibliographical database. 1. Presentation of the project Sizable comprehensive grammars, written by linguists but aiming at a larger audience, have been published for several European languages: for Italian, the Grande Grammatica italiana di consultazione (Renzi, Salvi, & Cardinaletti, 1989-1991), for Spanish the Gramatica descriptiva de la lengua española (Bosque & Demonte, 1999), for Catalan the Gramàtica del Català contemporani (Solà et al. 2002), for English the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston & Pullum, 2002). Nothing of the sort exists for French. Most grammar books are normative, while our aim, as linguists, is purely descriptive. The best existing descriptive French grammars are smaller, written by 2 or 3 authors, and mainly based on written literary French: M. Grevisse, A. Goosse (1936-2008) Le Bon Usage, M. Riegel et al. (1994-2009), La grammaire méthodique du français. While useful, they are based on a “rules and exceptions” approach, with no clear-cut distinctions between grammatical relations and categories, between syntax and semantics. They are not focused on the modern stage of the language, including references to 17 or 18 century authors such as Corneille or Marivaux. 1 1 For a more detailed comparison with other grammars, including Damourette & Pichon (1911-1946), see Abeillé, Delaveau, Godard 2007. Our project, called the Grande Grammaire du français is an international research project, which started in 2001 and was sponsored by the French CNRS. It will produce a book of about 2200 pages, to be published in 2011, and several associated electronic databases. It is a collective project, with 3 editors (Anne Abeillé, Annie Delaveau, Danièle Godard), gathering more than 50 authors, from different countries. 2 Like other large grammars for other Romance languages, it includes the results of recent linguistic research and makes them accessible to a larger audience. It is systematic, fully explicit, but not formalized ; it uses both conventional and modern terminology, with explicit definitions and a rich array of examples. We aim at a complete description of all syntactic phenomena of French, while also taking into account some morphological, lexical, semantic, pragmatic and prosodic aspects. Our descriptions are based on speakers’ 2 The authors are: A. Abeillé, P. Amsili, I. Bartning, A-M. Berthonneau, C. Beyssade, O. Bonami, P. Cappeau, M. Charolles, B. Combettes, V. Dahlet, M. Dargnat, E. Delais-Roussarie, A. Delaveau, M. Desmets, A. Di Cristo, J. Doetjes, B. Fagard, F. Gadet, D. Godard, B. Kampers-Manhe, K. Jonasson, J. Jayez, J-P. Koenig, L. Kupferman, B. Laca, B. Lamiroy, K. Lambrecht, F. Landragin, J-M. Léard, J-M. Marandin, A. Mari, L. Mélis, P. Miller, C. Molinier, F. Mouret, F. Mourlhon-Dallies, W. de Mulder, M. Noailly, B. Post, C. Rossari, L. Roussarie, F. Sabio, C. Schnedecker, I. Simatos, H. de Swart, D. Van De Velde, M. Van Peteghem, L. Tasmowski, L. Tovena, J. Tseng, C. Vet, C. Vetters, M-T. Vinet, R. Vivès, A. Zribi-Hertz