Maitriser la polysemie des mots, en France, entre 1730 et 1835: de l'abus des mots ou catachrese a l'extension ou troisième sens

Vol.35,No.1(2014)

Françoise Douay

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/130370

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Abstract
Long before the coining of the term "polysemy" (Bréal 1897) the many senses of linguistic units have been analyzed, such as sacred, legal or literary texts, logical propositions, scholarly terms or simple words. This paper focuses on the two opposite methods of handling polysemy-before- the-word-existed developed by lexicographers and encyclopaedists in France, between the treatise Des Tropes by the grammarian philosopher Dumarsais (1730) and the 6th edition of the Dictionnaire de l'Académie (1835). It shows how close is Breal's notion of "polysemy" to the option of dividing the different meanings of a term according to the distinct domains of knowledge they are relevant to, as practiced by the encyclopaedists (d'Alembert, Beauzée), in order to remind that polysemy is not a pure fact but a theoretical and methodical option, related to some particular linguistic tasks (here, to make an inventory and a classification rather than to give an interpretation or a translation).

Keywords:
trope; catachresis; misuse of words; meaning vs. sense; literal vs. extended vs. figurative sense; dictionary vs. encyclopaedia; polysemy vs. homonymy

Pages:
9–21
References

BEAUZEE, Nicolas. Catachrèse. In Encyclopédie Méthodique (=EM), t. 1. Paris: Panckoucke – Liège: Plomteux, 1782.

BREAL, Michel. Essai de sémantique (science des significations). Paris: Hachette, 1897.

DIDEROT, Denis; D'ALEMBERT, Jean Lerond. Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers, par une société de Gens de Lettres (=Encyclopédie). 20 vol. Facsimile New York: Pergamon Press, Maxwell compact Edition, 1969 [1751–1778].

DUMARSAIS, César Chesneau du Marsais (dir.). Des Tropes ou des différents sens dans lesquels on peut prendre un même mot dans une même langue. Trad. Françoise DOUAY SOUBLIN. Paris: Flammarion, 1988 [1730].

DUMARSAIS, César Chesneau du Marsais (dir.). Logique ou réflexions sur les principales opérations de l'esprit, art. XIII: "Des sophismes". In Logique et Principes de Grammaire. Paris: Moutardier, t. I, 1807 [1757], 44–91.

FONTANIER, Pierre. Les Tropes de Dumarsais avec un commentaire raisonné. Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1967 [1818].

FONTANIER, Pierre. Les Figures du discours. Paris: Flammarion, 1968 [1821].

FONTANIER, Pierre. La clef des étymologies. Paris: Brunot-Labbé, 1825.

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