Les Connecteurs du Français

Abstract

We explore in this article the syntactic criteria used to classify most French connectors. We have defined three main classes: - the first main class contains subordinating conjunctions (Conjs) subdivided into eight subclasses corresponding to various syntactic-semantic properties; - the second main class contains coordinating conjunctions (Conjco); - the third main class contains coordinating adverbs (Advconj); several syntactic criteria have been used to divide this class into two major subclasses. The use of formal criteria has allowed us to classify connectors on a more precise basis; one consequence is that some connectors are not classified in their traditional classes. Our study has brought to light interesting linguistic phenomena such as new relations between several subordinating and coordinating conjunctions.