LES DÉTERMINANTS DANS LES CIRCONSTANTS D’ÉTAT D’ATMOSPHÈRE CONSTRUITS AVEC LA PRÉPOSITION PAR

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the circumstantial adverbs having a “meteor ological” meaning materialized in the form of prepositional constructions with the French preposition par. We try to demonstrate that their meteorological meaning where they designate the atmospheric context in which an eventuality occurred is linked to their basic spatial use denoting horizontal movement. However, the main topic of this work is the selection of determinants in this type of construction. Our analysis of examples from the corpus on the internet demonstrates that with par we can use the indefinite or the demonstrative, but never the definite. We have explained that this rule is linked to the fact that the par construction does not introduce a moment or a calendar period but the atmosphere in which an eventuality took place. Finally, we point out that there is a difference between the cases where a single interval is introduced and those where it introduces a type of interval characterized by meteorological traits: only the second types of circumstances affect the subject and cause a certain behavior designated by the predicate of the sentence.