Contribution à l'étude de l'évolution de certainement
Iuvenilia Vol. XII/2010/2, pp. 570-581 DOI: 10.1556/Verb.12.2010.2.25
Keywords: certainement, adverb, sentence adverbial, grammaticalisation, 16th century
Abstract: The aim of this paper to describe the various uses of the adverb certainement 'certainly', based on 16th-century French texts. Having provided a short summary of the treatment of certainement in contemporary grammars, in the first – theoretical – part I will argue that the development of adverbs is a part of grammaticalisation processes. Based on the examples of Frantext, I will show that certainement was present in 16th-century French both as an adverb of manner and as a sentential adverbial.