Habiter le temps : le couple imparfait/passé simple en français - article ; n°127 ; vol.31, pg 77-95

Langages - Année 1997 - Volume 31 - Numéro 127 - Pages 77-95
Any praxis is inscribed in time. To what extent does man's perception of time leave an inprint on Saussurian langue ? Revisiting a well beaten track in linguistic studies, we propose to give this farrcaching question a partial answer concerning the opposition between French imparfait and passé simple. We first capture the opposition between those two tenses in a passive way, in which man as a subject (subjected to...) bears witness to the flow of time from future to past ; we then capture the opposition in an active way, in which man as a project bears witness to the flow of time from past to future. This two-fold representation bears on the opposition between imperfect and simple past. It is shown next that linguistic theories view tenses as markers of localisation in time whereas verb forms also help mark how the time implied by the process is viewed, what orientation is given to it. Our contention is that implied time is represented in a downward fashion (particularisation) with imperfect and in an upward fashion (generalisation) with simple past.
19 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.