L’ordre des mots dans la prose narrative au 17e siècle
Word Order in the Narrative Prose of the 17th Century

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with the evolution of word order in classical French and especially in narrative prose during the 17th century. We examine successively the following issues: (1) the grammatical approach of word order, (2) word order in the predicate (VO), (3) word order in the predicative relation (S V) and (4) word order in the rhetorical period. During the 17th century, the evolution of the syntactical organisation of the clause can be characterized by the distinction between the “noyau” (SVO) vs. peripheral constituents, and by the regulation of the insertions between the subject and the verb. This can be interpreted from a communicational and stylistic point of view, in relation to the evolution of the model of the rhetorical period along the century and the opposition of the “style diffus” and “style serré”.

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