Modelage proposé, modelage transformé: deux syntaxes successives pour les pronoms atones du français
Proposed modelling, transformed modelling: two successive syntaxes for French’s unstressed personal pronouns

Summary/Abstract: Two palpable changes took place in the syntax of French’s unstressed personal pronouns between the thirteenth and the seventeenth century. 1) The first and the second person of the indirect object case, which in old French were placed after the direct object, increasingly occupied antepositions. 2) The direct object case, which up to that point had remained implicit before the third person of the indirect object case, gradually became explicit. The present article argues that these changes constituted a new way of expressing semiologically the opposition between the interlocution’s persons (the first and the second) and the universal person (the third). Furthermore, this explanation is confirmed by the alternation of stressed and unstressed pronouns after verbs in the imperative mood in modern French.

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