Alors as a possible temporal connective in discourse Anne LE DRAOULEC Myriam BRAS ERSS, UMR 5610, CNRS and Université de Toulouse - Le Mirail

1. Introduction This work is part of a larger study on temporal connectives. It seeks to establish the status of the French temporal adverbial alors by answering the question of whether it can be considered a temporal connective, and under which conditions. We consider a temporal connective any adverb or adverbial phrase that expresses a temporal (or aspectuo-temporal) relation between two eventualities and, in addition, implies a logico-pragmatic relation between the two utterances in which the eventualities are described. In other words, temporal connectives are adverbs that play a role at the discourse level in introducing discourse relations. This definition has already been applied to puis (‘then’, ‘afterwards’), as opposed to the adverbial un peu plus tard (‘a little later’) or deux heures plus tard (‘two hours later’), in the formal framework of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory (SDRT, Asher 1993 ; Asher & Lascarides 2003). In Bras et alii (2001, 2003) and Borillo et alii (2004), we showed that only puis plays a role at the level of discourse relations. The same definition was used in Le Draoulec (2005) to reveal that the aspectuo-temporal adverbs aussitôt (‘immediately’, ‘straight away’) and soudain (‘suddenly’, ‘all of a sudden’) can play the role of discourse connective. Much work has been done on alors or its (approximate) English equivalent then (Franckel 1987, Gerecht 1987, Glasbey 1993, Hybertie 1996, Reyle 1998, Gosselin in press, and others). The work of Hybertie (1996) will be our starting point, since it considerably helped in the development of our own analysis. Hybertie distinguishes temporal uses of alors (with or without a consequential value), merely consequential uses (close to donc ‘therefore’), and other uses where alors is a kind of ‘structuration’ marker1. We will focus our attention on the temporal uses of alors, possibly associated with a consequential value – but this consequential value will be of interest to us only inasmuch as it involves the temporal value.

1

These other uses are in particular associated with intonation markers as in as alors, ça s’est bien passé ? (“so, how did it go ?”) or alors ça, c’est incroyable ! (“now, that is incredible !”), etc. © Cahiers Chronos 17 (2007) : 81-94.

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Among the parametres that will be taken into account concerning the status of alors as a possible Temporal Connective, its position in the sentence (initial vs. internal and final) proves to be crucial. In particular the importance of the initial (or at least preverbal) position will be put to the test, as it is generally assumed to favour the connective function. For puis the position parametre was not relevant because this adverb has gone through a grammaticalization process from old and middle French to modern French that ended in a fixed position at the beginning of the sentence (cf. Hansen 1995 : 33). The position parametre should have been examined for aussitôt and soudain, but it was left aside in Le Draoulec (2005) where the only studied position was the initial one ; however Le Draoulec (2005) suggested that these adverbials function differently when they are in internal or final position. A second parametre, the aspectuo-temporal one, will be partially considered here. We will mainly examine relations between utterances describing eventualities with a perfective aspect, namely event descriptions, leaving out state descriptions associated with imperfective aspect sentences 2. We will first introduce the two analyses we started from : the one by Creissels, as concerns the position alors (in §2), and the one by Hybertie (§3.1). We will then discuss Hybertie’s analysis (§3.2) in order to propose new hypotheses to account for the role of alors (§4). We will conclude on the connective status of alors (§5).

2. Syntactic status and position Our first starting point is an analysis of Creissels (1995), who clearly formulates the problem of the relationship between adverbs and connectives. He notes that (we translate below) : “[...] un nombre important d’‘adverbes’ ont en fait un statut syntaxique qui n'est pas différent de celui [des] ‘conjonctions de coordination’ : comme elles, ils impliquent une relation entre la structure phrastique où ils figurent et une autre structure phrastique [...].” (Creissels 1995 : 151) [...] a great number of ‘adverbs’ have a syntactic status which is in fact not different from that of ‘coordinating conjunctions’ : like these they imply a relationship between the sentence structure where they appear and another sentence structure [...] (translation ours). 2

The ontological opposition between events and states stems from logical and representational theories of discourse semantics such a Discourse Representation Theory (Kamp and Reyle 1993), where sentences with perfective aspect contribute an event discourse referent to the Discourse Representation Structure, whereas sentences with an imperfective aspect contribute a state referent.

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Creissels (1995 : 151-153) takes the example of the adverb aussi (‘also’, ‘too’) and notes that, although it is similar to coordinating conjunctions by its ability to imply a relationship between two sentence structures 3, it differs from them by its ability to occupy various positions in the sentence that it links with another sentence. Among these various positions, there is the initial position, and, according to Creissels, it is difficult, in that case, not to acknowledge that aussi has the status of a connective. But what about its status when it occupies other positions ? Creissels identifies the difficulty in this way (we translate below) : “L’exemple de aussi est révélateur d'une lacune importante de la grammaire traditionnelle en ce qui concerne les unités dont la fonction est de mettre en relation deux unités phrastiques : parmi ces unités, seules sont correctement identifiées celles qui se placent invariablement à la périphérie de l'unité phrastique. Mais il est vrai qu’à partir du moment où un connecteur peut se placer en différents points de la structure phrastique qu’il contribue à insérer dans son contexte, la distinction avec des unités intégrées à la structure prédicat-arguments n’est pas toujours évidente.” (p.153) The example of aussi reveals an important deficiency of traditional grammar concerning units whose function is to relate two sentence units : among these units, only those appearing invariably at the periphery of the sentence unit are properly identified. But it is true that, as soon as a connective can take up different positions in the sentence structure which it contributes to integrate in its context, its distinction from units integrated to the argument-predicate structure is not always easy (translation ours).

The units lying in this deficient part of grammar are precisely the ones we want to study. For temporal adverbs which are not placed in front of the verb, the question of distinguishing between modifiers (i.e. integrated units) and connectives (i.e. non integrated units) arises crucially : the distinction is far from easy when the temporal connection with what precedes coincides with the temporal location of the eventuality described by the sentence in which the adverb appears. The goal of these preliminary remarks was to place the problem in its syntactic context. In this study however, we will not take a syntactic perspective, since we are going to examine discursive aspects, in terms of discourse relations, paying special attention to the position of alors. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasize that this kind of problem arises as soon as one tries to apply syntactic criterion to elements that go beyond the sentence scope.

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Hansen (1995) established the same connection about puis.

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3. Hybertie’s analysis Our second and main starting point is the study of Hybertie (1996), which we are going to present briefly.

3.1. Presentation Hybertie studies the configuration S1 alors S2 in which alors appears somewhere in S2, S2 is separated from S1 by a comma or a full stop, and alors has a temporal value. She distinguishes two cases. The first one, where a temporal referent is introduced by a locating adverbial in S1, is illustrated in (1) : (1)

J’ai rencontré Pierre EN 1987. J’étais alors une jeune étudiante. ‘I met Pierre in 1987. I was a young student THEN / AT THAT TIME.’

In (1), alors is anaphoric, referring to the temporal referent introduced in S1 by in 1987. According to Hybertie, alors gives the temporal reference of S2, via this anaphoric link. In that case, alors has a temporal value of strict concomitance, which is its first value from a historical point of view, as Hybertie points out. It can be paraphrased by à cette époque-là, à ce momentlà (‘at that time’). The second case, where S1 does not introduce any temporal referent, is illustrated by the following example of Hybertie (p.24) : (2)

Je suis allée jusqu’à la place du village, ALORS je l’ai vu arriver. ‘I walked up to the village square, THEN I saw him arrive.’

In (2), it is still possible to paraphrase alors with à ce moment-là, but alors no longer indicates a strict temporal concomitance or coincidence as we saw for (1). Instead, it ‘drifts’ towards the expression of a temporal succession, although it is not a simple succession. Because according to Hybertie (p.25) : “[...] alors construit une séquence d'événements temporellement ordonnés. Il indique que les états de choses exprimés respectivement dans P1 et P2 sont ordonnés selon un ordre de succession temporelle qui est lié à un ordre logique de déroulement des faits, faisant apparaître le premier comme la condition de réalisation du second. Il introduit entre les faits une relation qui ne relève pas de la successivité, mais les présente comme dépendants l’un de l’autre […].” (Emphasis ours) [...] alors builds a sequence of temporally ordered events. It indicates that the states of affairs expressed in S1 and S2 respectively are ordered along a temporal succession order which is linked to a logical order of the sequence of events, showing the first one as the preliminary condition for the second one to happen. It introduces a relationship between the facts which does not

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fall within the field of successivity, but which presents them as dependent from each other […] (translation ours, emphasis ours).

It is this relation of dependency between the eventualities – understood as a ‘preliminary condition’ with a “logical order of the sequence of events” – that remains to be further explored. It can coincide with a cause-consequence relation, as in (3), where S1 results in S2 : (3)

Elle s’est mise en colère, ALORS il est parti. She got angry, THEN he left.

But there are other cases of dependency where the result relation is not present, as we saw for example (2), where the temporal succession is linked to a logical sequence of events : the subject had to go up to the square, so that she was able to see the other person arrive. Hybertie takes a strong position, according to which both temporal order and logical order are necessary if we want to use alors felicitously. When there is only temporal order, as in example (4) below, the use of alors is not felicitous 4 : (4)

Nous avons déjeuné. *ALORS nous sommes allés au cinéma. ‘We had lunch. *ALORS we went to the movies.’

3.2. Discussing Hybertie’s proposal We will not take into account the criterion according to which it is the presence or absence of a temporal referent introduced by a locating adverbial in S1 that determines the value of alors (namely case 1, illustrated by (1), vs. case 2, illustrated by (2) above). In our view, in (1) repeated below, (1)

J’ai rencontré Pierre EN 1987. J’étais ALORS une jeune étudiante.

the temporal value of concomitance is not due to the presence of en 1987, but to the imperfective situation in S2. In classical analyses following the anaphoric hypothesis for a tense such as the imparfait in French (see for example Kamp and Rohrer 1983), we would say that the reference time of S1 (r1) is included in the state described by S2 (s2), the temporal relationship between them being an inclusion relation : r1 ⊆ s2. This reference time can be given by the temporal locating adverbial of S1, as in (1). But it can also be 4

Of course, the translation with then is good, but it does not correspond with alors anymore. The correct equivalent in French would be puis. In order to avoid misunderstandings, we will not translate alors anymore in the English glosses.

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given by the event in S1, in case S1 does not include any temporal adverbial, as in (1’), with the same temporal interpretation r1 ⊆ s2, here equivalent to e1 ⊆ s2 : (1’)

J’ai rencontré Pierre en fac de lettres. J’étais ALORS une jeune étudiante. ‘I met Pierre at the faculty of arts. I was a young student THEN/AT THAT TIME.’

This question remains to be explored further, but we won’t go into further detail here, since from now on we will only consider ‘events’ (and not states). The second point in Hybertie’s analysis – the hypothesis of a dependency relation necessarily associated with alors when it expresses a temporal succession – seems to be extremely relevant and interesting. We are going to explore it further, starting from the analysis of examples (5) to (7) as proposed by Hybertie (pp.27-28). (5) (6)

(7)

Nous sommes sortis du cinéma. Il pleuvait ALORS sur Nantes. ‘We got out of the cinema. It was ALORS raining on Nantes.’ Mme de Staël s'installe dans un fauteuil. La femme de chambre frappe ALORS à la porte. ‘Mme de Staël sits down in an armchair. The maid knocks ALORS at the door.’ Paul partit, ALORS l'orage éclata. ‘Paul left, ALORS the thunder broke out.’

These examples are given by Hybertie as possible counterexamples to her proposal, according to which alors, when not preceded by a temporal referent introduction, implies both temporal succession and dependency. These examples are chosen as describing simple narrations. They could, for this reason, seem to convey no dependency relation : for instance, in (6), between the event of sitting-down in an armchair, on the one hand, and the event of knocking at the door, on the other hand. In order to re-establish the validity of her analysis, Hybertie puts forward the notion of ‘point of view’ of an omniscient narrator : in the framework of a narration, alors builds the point of view of the omniscient narrator, according to which S1 has to occur so that S2 can occur, and can be a supplementary step in the narration.

4. Towards a new hypothesis Interesting as it may seem, Hybertie’s hypothesis does not prove to be entirely appropriate for the examples that she wants to explain, at least not for (5) and (6). We can analyse (5) along the same lines as (1) : we have a

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concomitance relationship between two eventualities, since the second utterance, including an imparfait, describes a state. So there is no need to try and build any dependency link. Besides, example (5) was not particularly commented on by Hybertie. Hybertie applies in a more explicit way her general analysis to (6). According to her, the presence of alors in (6) indicates that the narrator positions herself within a clear and coherent sequence of events in which the sitting-down event has to take place first, and then the knocking event has to take place, in order to enable a third event to take place. Yet we don’t think it necessary for the reader to place herself in the narrative sequence to understand this example. It seems to us that in (6), alors just refers to the time of the event in S1, namely the sitting down event. Now, we must ask whether this position is in contradiction to the one we assumed before, namely that alors requires a dependency link between the two utterances (about examples (2), (3) and (4)). As a matter of fact, there is no contradiction, and example (6) does not have to be regarded as a real counterexample to Hybertie’s hypothesis, as long as one notes that alors is not initial (at the beginning of S2), but internal to S2, in contrast to the examples (2), (3), (4), where alors is initial. We thus claim that this dependency link is present when alors is initial, but not when it is internal. Therefore, the analysis of Hybertie would be all right for (6’), but not for (6) : (6’)

Mme de Staël s'installe dans un fauteuil. ALORS la femme de chambre frappe à la porte. ‘Mme de Staël sits down in an armchair. ALORS the maid knocks at the door.’

On the other hand, an example such as (7), with an initial alors, clearly fits Hyberties’s proposal. It is necessary to include the larger narrative sequence, otherwise (7) is hard to interpret, as Hyberties herself points out. If we move alors in final position as in (7’), the example is perfectly acceptable : (7’)

Paul partit. Un orage éclata ALORS. ‘Paul left, a storm broke ALORS .’

(7’) seems quite acceptable without resorting to the logic of the narrative sequence adopting the point of view of an omniscient narrator. Besides, without the omniscient narrator’s point of view, we move from the definite to the indefinite determiner (i.e. de l’orage à un orage). Let us underline the (obvious) fact that it is thanks to the examples of Hybertie and to the proposal she made that we have been able to elaborate our own hypothesis. In this new hypothesis, the need to establish a distinction according to the position of alors is stated – initial position on the one hand, internal or final position, on the other :

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Hypothesis 1 • Initial alors necessarily expresses a dependence link between S1 and S2, • Internal or final alors doesn’t. However, this does not mean that no dependency link can be established when alors is internal or final. Let us compare (8) and (8’) : (8) (8’)

Il m'a rejointe. ALORS je me suis souvenue que j'avais oublié mes clés. ‘He joined me. ALORS I remembered that I had forgotten my keys.’ Il m'a rejointe. Je me suis ALORS souvenue que j'avais oublié mes clés. ‘He joined me. I remembered ALORS that I had forgotten my keys.’ 5

In (8), we have to interpret alors as introducing a dependency relation between the two events, which could be glossed by “it is when he joined me that I remembered that I had forgotten my keys.” In (8’), this interpretation is possible, but only possible. Here, alors only refers to the time of the event described by S1, e1, and could be replaced by à ce moment-là (‘at that time’). If the dependency interpretation is present, it seems that it is not fundamentally part of the meaning of internal alors, as it is for initial alors. In other words, the role of initial alors requires a dependency link between the eventualities described in S1 and S2, whereas the role of internal alors is basically temporal : it may reveal a pre-existing dependency link which is determined by the semantic content of the eventualities (eventuality types) and pragmatic knowledge 6. If the semantic content of the two eventualities linked together is such that it is possible to see a dependency relation between them, the difference between the two cases (initial alors vs. internal alors) is very subtle. It only stems from the way the dependency relation is implied : direct implication, or indirect, secondary effect. And it is true that the distinction can, under these conditions, appear as very intuitive. Nevertheless, if the eventualities appear as obviously independent, it is much easier to show the difference. With an initial alors we have to construe a link (i.e. to put the two eventualities linked by alors in the logical order of a narrative sequence) in order to make the use of alors felicitous. With an internal alors it is not necessary. We already

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Note that the English translation here is in the simple past, whereas the French version uses the “passé compose” and locates alors between the auxiliary and the past participle. The tendency to adopt, when possible, the interpretation of a strong link in the sequence of events is a well known phenomenon. The presence of alors strengthens this tendency – which nevertheless would exist if alors was not there.

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mentioned that point with the analysis of examples (7) and (7’). We can check it again by comparing (9) and (9’) : (9) (9’)

Il s'assit dans son fauteuil. ALORS le téléphone se mit à sonner. ‘He sat down in his armchair. ALORS the phone started to ring.’ Il s'assit dans son fauteuil. Le téléphone se mit ALORS à sonner. ‘He sat down in his armchair. The phone started ALORS to ring.’

Only the initial alors of example (9) makes us build a dependency relation between “He sat down in his armchair” and “the phone started to ring”. In (9’), the relationship is understood as a properly temporal one. Now, as a second stage of our argument, we are going to re-examine hypothesis 1, in order to see if we can account for the acceptability or nonacceptability of the examples examined up to now. Thanks to this hypothesis we can account for the intuitive difference between initial alors and internal alors. This difference has been observed many times : the temporal value assigned to internal alors is described for example by Franckel (1987). Hybertie herself points out this difference, claiming that the internal position is the favourite place for temporal alors (p.25). Nevertheless, according to Hybertie, this ‘more temporal’ feature does not exclude the requirement for a dependency link between the two eventualities described in S1 and S2. It is on this point that we disagree. We saw above that thanks to her hypothesis, Hybertie could account for the unacceptability of (4) : (4)

Nous avons déjeuné. *ALORS nous sommes allés au cinéma. ‘We had lunch. *ALORS we went to the movies.’

We can also account for this unacceptability with our Hypothesis 1, in accordance with the conflict between initial alors and the absence of dependency relation. Let us now examine example (10), which derives from example (4), where we have moved alors in internal position : (10)

Nous avons déjeuné. *Nous sommes ALORS allés au cinéma. ‘We had lunch. *We went ALORS to the movies.’

We cannot account for (10) with our Hypothesis 1, whereas Hybertie can, as she does for (4), because the dependency link is required, whatever the position of alors. If we want to maintain our Hypothesis 1, we have to explore other means to explain why (10) is not good. This explanation will also lead us to underline another important element for the distinction between initial or internal alors. Let us now observe the differences in acceptability in the pairs of examples below :

90 (11) (11’) (12) (12’)

Anne Le Draoulec & Myriam Bras Il m'a fait un sale coup. ALORS je me suis vengée, des années plus tard. ‘He played a dirty trick on me. ‘ALORS’ I took my revenge, some years later.’ Il m'a fait un sale coup. *Je me suis ALORS vengée, des années plus tard. ‘He played a dirty trick on me. *I ALORS took my revenge, some years later.’ Il m'a dit que j'avais l'air fatigué, ALORS je suis partie en vacances. ‘He told me I looked tired, ALORS I set off on holiday.’ Il m'a dit que j'avais l'air fatigué, *je suis ALORS partie en vacances. ‘He told me I looked tired, *I set off ALORS on holiday.’

These four examples describe successions of events with a temporal gap between e1 and e2. This gap could not be expressed by à ce moment-là (‘at that time’). It is particularly obvious in (11) and (11’), with the adverbial des années plus tard (‘some years later’), which indicates the gap explicitly. We can observe that only initial alors in (11) can combine with this temporal gap. In (11’) we see that internal alors conflicts with the temporal succession and the gap conveyed by des années plus tard. The temporal gap may or may not be explicitly mentioned. In (12) and (12’), it is not explicit. Nevertheless, alors in internal position yields an awkward sentence in (12’). So, if (11’) and (12’) are more difficult to accept than (11) and (12), this means that when alors is not at the front of S2, it cannot express a temporal gap with the eventuality of S1. Thus we have pointed out another major difference 7 between alors in front of the sentence and alors inside the sentence. This prompts us to formulate our second hypothesis as follows : Hypothesis 2 • Only initial alors, implying a dependency link between the utterances, licences the relation of temporal succession with a temporal gap between the events described. • internal alors, whose value is primarily temporal, (which may cooccur with a dependency link, but does not need to) keeps the temporal value of concomitance originally conveyed by alors (cf. à ce moment-là). Let us investigate a little further the case of internal alors. We have just seen that if there is a dependency relation, this dependency is associated with a relation of concomitance : we would make examples (11) and (12) much better if we could modify S2 so that it is understood that S2 describes an immediate reaction to S1 – i.e., that e2 occurs just after e1. We can get this interpretation by replacing je me suis vengée, des années plus tard (‘I took 7

This distinction conflicts with Hybertie’s claim, who talks of shifting from concomitance to temporal succession the same way in both cases.

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my revenge’) in (11’), by je me suis promis de me venger (‘I vowed to take my revenge’) in (13), since se promettre (‘to vow’) can be an immediate response :

 (13)

Il m'a fait un sale coup. Je me suis ALORS promis de me venger. ‘He played a dirty trick on me. I vowed ALORS to take my revenge.’

We can do the same for (12’), replacing partir en vacances (‘set off on holiday’) by décider de partir en vacances (‘decide to set off on holiday’), or ranger ses affaires (‘put one’s things away’) : (14)

Il m'a dit que j'avais l'air fatigué ; j'ai alors décidé de partir en vacances / j'ai ALORS rangé mes affaires et je suis partie. ‘He told me I looked tired ; I decided ‘alors’ to set off on holiday / I put ALORS my things away and left.’

To make things more precise, we should say that it is possible to have a succession relation with internal alors, but a relation of immediate succession, which is a quasi-coincidence that still can be paraphrased in French by à ce moment là (‘at that time’). Now, taking for granted that this coincidence or immediate succession relation is the only one possible with internal alors, we can account again for the unacceptability of (10) repeated below : (10)

Nous avons déjeuné. *Nous sommes ALORS allés au cinéma. ‘We had lunch. *We went ALORS to the movies.’

because there must be a temporal gap between having lunch and going to the movies, which is not possible with internal alors.

5. Conclusion regarding the connective status of alors This study of alors in association with event descriptions allowed us to show that : • alors in initial position has a steady role at the discourse level because it always implies a dependency relation. This is a strong constraint, which does not depend on semantic or pragmatic conditions. In accordance with the definition of connectives we gave in the introduction, we can conclude that alors plays a true role of connective when it is in this initial position, • alors in internal / final position shows, in some cases, traces of his connective role. But it is a softer constraint because there is no

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steady discourse relation, and because the semantic effect of dependence is determined by the semantico-pragmatic context. In that case, and according to our definition, alors cannot be considered a real connective. We should now investigate more deeply the internal / final distinction. Apart from (7’), we have only considered examples with internal alors, putting internal and final positions on the same level, as opposed to the initial position. Yet a continuum could no doubt be established between the various possible positions. Our intuition is the following : even when the two eventualities linked by alors lend themselves to a consecution relation – in the sense that the second one can be interpreted as a consequence of the first one – it seems that the consecution interpretation becomes less prominent as alors moves away from the beginning of the sentence. Thus, if we compare the examples in (15), the piece of information conveyed by alors seems closer to a purely temporal indication in (c) than in (b) and even more so than in (a), where the temporal information goes with the consecution relation. (15) (a) Il a continué à insister. ALORS je lui ai dit qu’il se trompait. ‘He kept on insisting. ALORS I told him he was mistaken.’ (b) Il a continué à insister. Je lui ai ALORS dit qu’il se trompait. (c) Il a continué à insister. Je lui ai dit ALORS qu’il se trompait.

Of course this intuition needs to be checked and confirmed through a deeper study of alors in various internal positions as in (b) and (c) above, or in final position. Another important element for the description of alors is the interaction with aspectual and temporal structure. We have restricted ourselves here to event descriptions, but we should also study alors when it appears in sentences describing states. An example such as (16) shows that in such a sentence, even if it is in initial position, alors may not be a connective : its role is only temporal here. (16)

Jours lointains… ALORS tous les espoirs étaient encore permis. (Le destin de Mr Crump) ‘Far-off days… ALORS all the hopes were still permitted.’

Last, we intend to integrate these analyses in SDRT. This will put SDRT to the test in an interesting fashion. SDRT is a theory of the semantics / pragmatics interface, grounded on compositional semantic representations (DRSs) for the propositional content of sentences, built on their syntactic structures. To describe the contribution of alors to discourse representation (SDRS), we need to take into account syntactic factors (cf. the question of position), as well as semantic factors (more particularly,

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aspectuo-temporal parametres). This will be necessary to distinguish between the two different roles that we pointed out here : • the temporal adverbial role when alors introduces a temporal relation of coincidence or immediate succession inside the DRS representing the propositional content of the sentence including alors ; • the connective role when alors triggers the inference of a discourse relation whose temporal effects will have to be compatible with succession. This discourse relation remains to be better specified. We have described it as a ‘dependency’ relation. One of the main questions will be how to express this relation within a discourse relation system including Narration and Result as discourse relations : dependency seems to be situated between Narration and Result, but will it be necessary to introduce it as a new discourse relation, or will we be able to account for it via the scalarity of Narration or Result8 ? We hypothesize that initial alors triggers a weak form of the Result relation, which could be defined by a weak causality relation between the eventualities. The definition of a ‘weak-Result’ relation should imply the redefinition of Result as a scalar relation (with a strong form and a weak one).

References Asher, N. (1993). Reference to abstract Objects in Discourse, Dordrecht : Kluwer. Asher, N. ; Lascarides, A. (2003). Logics of Conversation, Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Borillo, A. ; Bras, M. ; Le Draoulec, A. ; Vieu, L. ; Molendijk, A. ; De Swart, H. ; Verkuyl, H. ; Vet, C. ; Vetters, C. (2004). Tense, Connectives and Discourse Structure, in : H. De Swart ; F. Corblin, (eds), Handbook of French Semantics, Standford : CSLI publications, 309-348. Bras, M. ; Le Draoulec, A. ; Vieu, L. (2001). French Adverbial Puis between Temporal Structure and Discourse Structure, in : M. Bras ; L. Vieu, (eds), Semantic and Pragmatic Issues in Discourse and Dialogue : Experimenting with Current Theories, CRiSPI series, vol. 9, Amsterdam : Elsevier, 109-146. Bras, M. ; Le Draoulec, A. ; Vieu, L. (2003). Connecteurs et temps verbaux dans l'interprétation temporelle du discours : le cas de « puis » en interaction avec l'imparfait et le passé simple, Cahiers Chronos 11 : 7197. 8

The same kind of question was left open at the end of the study of aussitôt (Le Draoulec 2005).

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