Functional Differentiation of Coordinating Devices in Contemporary French: A Methodology for Quantitative Interpretation

This article addresses the issue of functional differentiation among coordinating devices in contemporary French. The study aims to develop a methodology for the quantitative interpretation of the functional potential of conjunctions, grounded in a representative corpus sample from Frantext (2000–present). Based on the established indices of copulativity and connectivity, which objectify the degree of involvement in the grammaticalization process for the 56 units recorded in the corpus, functional profiles for each unit were constructed. The application of cluster analysis, guided by the prototypical “core-periphery” principle, resulted in the identification of four distinct zones: the core, the near-core, the near periphery, and the far periphery. Consequently, this research enriches the classical field model by integrating quantitative methods and corpusbased data. The systemic asymmetry within this segment of the linguistic subsystem is demonstrated, characterized by the dominance of the connective function over the copulative function and the varying syntactic specialization of core and peripheral elements. The author concludes that a unit's frequency rank is not an indicator of its conjunctive potential. In perspective, the proposed methodology is applicable to the description of coordinating devices in other languages, particularly those of the Romance group, to identify general patterns in the functioning of this class of units.

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