French ingressives and (phasal) aspect: A frame-semantic corpus-based analysis

Abstract

This article compares the usage of commencer à ‘to begin’+Vinf. and se mettre à ‘to start’ + Vinf. in modern French. Using a corpus sample of 2000 observations, we examined the effect of Adverbial complementation, of Event type (aspect), and of Tense. Based on a mixed-effects logistic regression analysis, we found evidence for Event type, where se mettre à is associated with activities, and Tense, where se mettre à seems to be associated with passé simple, futur proche and subjonctif present. On the other hand, commencer à is associated with plus-que-parfait and indicatif imparfait. We discuss the results in the frame-semantic model of Croft (2012). We make the case that commencer à can have the profile of an achievement or that of an accomplishment, while se mettre à manifests only one profile, that of an achievement. Our results support a one-component approach to aspect in which the result of the interaction between grammatical aspect and lexical aspect can be attributed to the same aspectual contour.

Zooming in on the semantics of French ingressives: a collostructional analysis

“…the infinitive slot (Stefanowitsch and Gries, 2003: 213). According to the hypothesis of Verroens and De Cuypere (2023), the ingressive constructions have their own meaning: Both ingressive constructions mark the onset of an event, but they modify the aspectual contour of a base event in different ways. COMA is able to exhibit an achievement profile, an accomplishment profile, or an activity 11 profile while SMA tends to mark a punctual transition, i.e.…”

“…The corpus-based analysis of Verroens and De Cuypere (2023) shows that most of the intuitive observations illustrated in (2)-( 5) are justified. The findings of their mixed-effects logistic regression model suggest that SMA is significantly associated with Activities (in the sense of Vendler, 1967).…”

“…Dowty, 1979: 68, IIId). According to Verroens and De Cuypere (2023) it can also be an Accomplishment in the case of COMA. From this perspective, SMA has the expected Achievement-profile, whereas COMA has a broader distribution extending beyond Achievements.…”

“…transition, which, because of its punctuality, is very difficult to reconcile with the imperfective, but is on the other hand perfectly compatible with the perfective and with punctual adverbs. Verroens and De Cuypere (2023) argue that, just like predicates, aspectual constructions can have more than one construal too. The two ingressive constructions can be distinguished on the basis of clear aspectual differences in terms of a punctual/durative analysis.…”

“…As for the adverbs (3) and the somewhat impressionistic assumption of some linguists about the "brutality" of the inception, there is no evidence that this is indeed the case, because of the limited number of instances found with an adverb. In relation to phasal aspect, Verroens and De Cuypere (2023) interpret their results from a framesemantic perspective (Croft, 2012) and they were able to observe that the two constructions mark a sub-event, namely the initial phase of the event, in a different way: COMA builds a "durative sub-event" corresponding to the initial phase of the event (designated by the infinitive), and this non-punctual initial phase 5 can just as easily be grasped under a perfective as an imperfective construal 6 (commença à/ était en train de commencer à 'began at/was beginning at'), whereas SMA rather designates the initial boundary of the event. SMA thus constructs an initial 5…”