Cycnos | Numéros | Volume 23.1 - Le Qualitatif

Résumé :

The genitive case and the preposition of are often described as equivalent, hence the habit of using each of them in paraphrases of the other.The histories of the two markers reveal unquestionable similarities: one of these is the spatial primary meaning, dating back to the Indo-European origins for the genitive as locator of the starting point of a path, and to Old English for of as expressing location relative to a starting-point. Another similarity is that the set of derived meanings of the case as locator-marker is strikingly parallel to the set of derived meanings of the preposition as location-marker.The main difference between the genitive and of remains the diachronic interval between the two evolutions. In Present-Day English, the genitive has reached a stage in which, being the only case in an otherwise uninflected language, it behaves like a determiner more than like a case. Present-Day genitive functions both as operator and marker of the maximum qualitative determination (pinpointing in A. Culioli’s theory). As for of, it has become the main analytical marker of location relative to a qualitative locator.

Date de publication : 2006-05-31