Le poids de la syntaxe dans le parcours interprétatif

Abstract : Text Semantics provides a unified theoretical frame that articulates three levels of textual complexity from sentence to corpus. But the relation between grammar and text is best dealt with at the intermediate level of the paragraph or rhetorical period where syntactic constraints such as concord and government are strongest. The functional system of a given language, however, is not paramount in the attribution of meaning to a text. Even subject-verb concord can be submitted to semantic determinations and categorisation problems and multiple attachments are solved thanks to contextual semantic features. A top-down approach shows that morphosyntactic variations are bound to linguistic norms inherent in discourses and genres. Syntactic patterns merely provide prescriptions as to the semantic operations of assimilation or dissimilation to be carried out in order to interpret an utterance.