The Evolution of the French Preposition System

这个项目的目的是历时研究从古法语到现在的法语介词à、en、par、对立面、dèS、devant、entre、our、sans、sur、sous、ver和dans的用法、语义和语篇价值。这项研究将以统计和分布的方法为工具，研究介词的组合行为随时间(历时演变)、体裁和作者的变化。一个特别感兴趣的领域将是检测介词进入的高度特定的组合。我们将研究介词化石结构的兴起、重组和衰落。我们期望通过一个基于两套方法论程序的分析模型，对历时演变有一个创新的看法：(1)研究数量(介词的用法)和质量(值)维度之间的相互依赖关系；(2)研究历时中寻找附加语义和语篇价值的原则--这是语言变化的真正驱动力。该项目的必要条件之一--这也将是其主要贡献之一--将是建立一个带注释和词汇化的语料库，涵盖法语历史的每个阶段，并平衡体裁和文本类型。该语料库由法国和德国团队联合建立，将部分基于里昂(中世纪)、图尔斯(16世纪)、南希(ATILF)和科隆(现代法语，17-20世纪)现有的资源。将采取积极主动的办法，开放尽可能多的语料库。

The aim of this project is a diachronic study of the uses, semantics and discourse values of the French prepositions à, en, par, contre, dès, devant, entre, pour, sans, sur, sous, vers and dans from Old French to the present.The study, which will be instrumented and based on a statistical and distributional approach, will bear on the variations in the combinational behaviour of prepositions depending on date (diachronic evolution), genre and author. One area of special interest will be the detection of the highly specific combinations into which the prepositions enter. We will study the rise, reorganization and fall of fossilized prepositional structures. We expect to get an innovative view of diachronic evolution thanks to a model of analysis based on two sets of methodological procedures: (1) a study of the interdependence between the quantitative (uses of prepositions) and qualitative (values) dimensions, and (2) a study of the principles which have underlain the search for added semantic and discourse values in diachrony - a veritable driving force of language change. One of the requisites of the project - which will also be one of its major contributions - will be the construction of an annotated and lemmatized corpus spanning every stage of the history of French and balancing genres and text types. This corpus, set up jointly by the French and German teams, will be based partly on resources already available in Lyon (mediaeval era), Tours (16th century), Nancy (ATILF) and Cologne (modern French, 17th - 20th centuries). A proactive approach will be taken to give open access to as much of the corpus as possible.