This small volume, composed of a useful introduction and six substantive contributions, represents the first publication resulting from the collaboration of a group of researchers working on a diverse set of discourse markers described either as topicalisers or partition markers (referred to in English as meronomical markers). The initial application of the notion of partition was in relation to indefinite determiners or pronouns such as quelques: in an utterance such as Quelques élèves n’ont pas fait le devoir, quelques effects an operation of partition through the inference concerning the other pupils belonging to a larger set of pupils previously evoked, namely that they did not all do the assignment. This notion has subsequently been applied to the analysis of nonreferential markers such as quant à, à propos de, en ce qui concerne, and au regard de. As laid out in the introduction by Schnedecker and Theissen, the research programme in question seeks to bring together various markers belonging to these two ‘families’, in view of certain common properties that suggest a fundamental relatedness among them. These properties include a certain complementarity of occurrence, their dependence on a previously evoked discourse entity to which the referent in question is semantically related as part to whole, and the ambiguous information status of the accompanying referent, which is neither totally ‘new’ nor totally ‘given’.
The volume possesses a high degree of unity, despite varying theoretical frameworks and differing ‘angles d’attaque’. The primary approach is that of systematic description of the functioning of the selected markers, which overlaps in some cases with a diachronic approach. One chapter is dedicated to terminological concerns, while another interjects a comparative perspective through the study of the English marker constituted by the suffix –wise.
The nature of Theissen's initial chapter is revealed by its title, ‘Petite incursion dans la jungle topicale’. Theissen succeeds in bringing some order to the confusion engendered by the proliferation of differing uses of the three terms topique/topicalisation, thème/thématisation, and focus/focalisation, passing in review recent formulations by French linguists, notably Nølke (Reference Nølke1994). Though the notions of topic and theme are often conflated, Theissen concludes that topicalisation, but not necessarily thematisation, always involves a modification of the order of sentence constituents; focalisation, on the other hand, is characterised primarily by its function of identifying a choice among the members of a paradigm, hence a notion of contrast. The article seeks not only to differentiate the three notions, but also to suggest potential convergences between them.
Among the contributions that systematically describe the behaviour of selected markers in discourse are that of P. Cappeau and J. Deulofeu on il y (en) a and J.-M. Debaisieux's chapter on quant à and en ce qui concerne. Both of these analyses are based in Blanche-Benveniste's model of microsyntax and macrosyntax and reveal new insights about the functioning of these markers in oral discourse. Cappeau and Deulofeu's lengthy article studies several different constructions with the presentative il y a, analysed as ‘stabilisers’ of the subject-verb relation, thus allowing indefinite referents to circumvent, so to speak, the constraint against indefinite NPs in subject position that applies in spontaneous oral French. The following authentic example illustrates two of these configurations:
(1) les malheureux il y en a qui sont partis à Fréjus après ils ont ils ont été en Compiègne ils ont été en Allemagne il y en a qui sont morts il y en a peuchère ils sont retournés tuberculeux voyez eh on s’est dispersé et on s’est plus vu (p. 55)
In her chapter, Debaisieux elucidates the similarities and differences between quant à and en ce qui concerne, both of which are considered to introduce a prefix in a préfixe-noyau configuration à la Blanche-Benveniste's macrosyntax. The study disproves a distinction between the two in terms of topic vs. frame interpretation, but reveals differing formal constraints, namely that only quant à is limited to utterance-initial position. Interestingly, quant à but not en ce qui concerne is shown to differ in function according to the planned or unplanned nature of the discourse, the planned use implying a strict discursive ordering of its entity as following a previously evoked entity. This difference is attributed to the rhetorical nature of quant à, which is seen as learned rather than acquired by speakers, and which is in fact much more frequent in planned discourse than in spontaneous speech.
Space constraints do not permit a detailed account of the other equally interesting contributions. D. Crevenat-Werner studies the verbless relative construction with dont (Cinq Belges, dont un Wallon, ont participé au concours) using a referential and cognitive approach. Processes of grammaticalisation come to the fore in the chapter on the family of markers constructed with regard by B. Combettes and S. Prévost, as well as in the final chapter by C. Guimier on the English domain adverbs constructed with -wise (e.g. Personnel-wise, I think we have the best team here.)
