Preclassic French may be regarded as a culmination in the use of synonymic binomials, reaching their peak of frequency, showing signs of frozenness, and starting to be denounced as a clumsy rhetorical device that dwindles accordingly. In this paper, we adopt a quantitative approach on verbal binomials in Preclassic French based on data from the Frantext corpus, evidencing key structural properties of the system: the two sets of verbs that are combined are different enough to ensure a greater diversity of binomials, while the associations between these sets are constrained so as to ensure a high level of informativity between the two verbs, and therefore a better degree of coherence in the use of the binomial construction. We also offer a simple yet novel statistical method to select the most relevant and significantly recurrent verbal binomials in the corpus.
Delivered in 81 B.C., Pro P. Quinctio Cicero's earliest preserved speech, is a civil plea in which the Roman orator defends his client, Publius Quinctius, against the dishonest maneuvers of his accuser, Sextus Naevius. The speech is characterized by a rich, ample style, full of redundancies, due to the orator's youth, but also to the influence of Asianic rhetoric. This richness and abundance of the Ciceronian language is marked particularly by the frequent use of binomial constructions. Regarding the grammatical category of the coordinated terms forming these constructions, the text attests the use of nouns tempus et spatium, in dicione ac potestate, fines terminosque adjectives potentiam leuem atque inopem, recta atque honesta ratione verbs orat atque obsecrat, dici aut commemorari, and adverbs sero et nequiquam, timide et pedetentim
The present article hypothesises that bare binomial coordinations constitute a specific structure in French, with semantic effects that distinguish it from other forms of coordination. These effects, which consist of the manifestation of a totalising flavour, can be attributed to the referential mode of operation imposed by zero determination. On the basis of L5bner's formalization of the notion of "semantic frames" (2014b, 2015, 2021), it is posited that the referential instruction of zero determination entails that the members of a bare binomial are conceptualized as part of the same frame. Building on this, we discuss the possibility to conceive of bare determination as a new marker of "natural coordination", suited for the renewal of the natural/accidental opposition in modern Indo-European languages.
In this article we examine the communicative function of legal paratactic groups, asking whether their use responds to the search for precision, legal certainty, or is a question of style or inherited formalism. Examples are analysed in English, French and Spanish, languages with Roman influence and historical coexistence. Legal paratactic groups are indeed an expression of legal security in the language of law, but their use goes beyond this function, as there are examples of communicative objectives that respond to new communication needs, sociolinguistic changes and transformations in political and legal systems.
