Langue française - Année 1996 - Volume 111 - Numéro 1 - Pages 38-58Henning N0LKE : Where to place the attributive adjective in French ? Focalisation and modularity More than 450 years of research have shown that the placement of the French attributive adjective — before or after its substantive — is governed by a huge number of apparently disparate factors. This paper argues that a cogent theory of focalisation can explain a large scale of facts which hitherto been regarded as non-related. Conceived of as a component of a linguistic modular model, focalisation theory may thus contribute to yielding valuable new insight into the complex mechanisms underlying word order even at the phrase level. 21 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.