The discourse uses of the verb dire ‘to say’ in Vernacular French: A corpus-based exploration

Abstract

This article provides a descriptive account of the major uses of the speech verb dire “to say” in Vernacular French. CLAPI Corpus (Corpus de Langue Parlée en Interaction), which is a multimedia database of corpora recorded in real situations (i.e. professional, institutional, commercial, didactic, and medical) is used. Five major uses of the verb dire are found, namely quotative (speech) dire, epistemic dire¸ evocative dire, desiderative dire, and copular dire. Unlike quotative dire, epistemic dire, evocative dire, desiderative dire and copular dire are restricted in terms of their occurrences (with varying degrees between them). For instance, the verb dire under some of these uses does not take place in the perfect tense, while under other uses it is only restricted to a specific type of subjects (i.e. the demonstrative pronoun ça). We take these restrictions as evidence that this verb undergoes different stages of grammaticalization. Therefore, the study concludes that the verb dire is a target of a grammaticalization process that causes the semantic shift that the verb dire in Spoken French witnesses.

Keywords:

• Epistemic verbs
• grammaticalization
• speech verbs
• Vernacular French

1. Introduction

Grammaticalization is a linguistic phenomenon, which has been the center of much scholarly attention by a number of linguists (see, e.g., Aikhenvald, 2011; Harb et al., 2022; Hopper & Traugott, 2003; Aikhenvald 2004, J. Bybee, 1985; Jarrah & Harb, 2021; Jarrah et al., 2019; Rhee, 2001; Traugott, 1989).¹ Historically, much interest in the reconstruction of language comes predominantly from synchronic accounts of morphophonological reconstructions of Indo-European (Hickey, 2003) and East-Asian (Xing, 2020) languages. Such accounts, supported by new technologies that help to explore diachronic aspects of language change, have yielded some opposing views regarding the source of language change. For instance, some researchers argue that language change is a consequence of universal processes that pertain to how language is essentially organized in the mind (Lightfoot, 1991). On the other hand, other researchers propose that language structures are developed due to processes of language change (i.e., grammaticalization) (Kuteva et al., 2008). The latter view of language change is found appealing; it aims to “describe the way grammatical forms arise and develop through space and time, and to explain why they are structured the way they are” (Heine, 2003, p. 575). Meillet (1912) defines grammaticalization as a change that gives “a grammatical character to a formerly independent word” (p. 132). By the same token, Kuryłowicz (1965) posits that “grammaticalization consists in the increase of the range of a morpheme advancing from a lexical to a grammatical or from a less grammatical to a more grammatical status” (p. 52). Heine (2003) argues that grammaticalization is a theoretical enterprise which provides explanations of how such phenomena occur the way they do. Grammaticalization (also known as grammaticization or grammatization) is generally defined as “the process by which grammar is created” (Croft, 2006, p. 366).

This research paper aims to provide a description of grammaticalization of the verb dire “to say” in Vernacular French, which has barely been explored in this regard. Essentially, we attempt to address two questions, namely:

1. What are the discourse functions of the verb dire in Vernacular French?

2. What are the major characteristics of each function of the verb dire in terms of tense, the type of the subject they concur with, and morphological inflections with their subjects?

Based on the related literature, we maintain the hypothesis that the verb dire has developed a number of functions in vernacular discourse, which are different from its use as a quotative predicate.

In this article, we particularly provide evidence from Vernacular French that the verb dire expresses certain discourse functions which are better interpreted as true instances of grammaticalization. In addition to the use of the verb dire as a predicate that refers to speech, our findings point to the situation that this verb can also be used as an epistemic verb, an evocative (expressive) verb, a desiderative verb and a copular verb (representative examples will be given below). However, these functions are different from the quotative use of this verb in terms of the degree of grammaticalization they undergo. For example, desiderative dire and copular dire are suggested to undergo an advanced stage of grammaticalization as they exclusively take place with a special type of subjects and never take place in the perfect tense or in the future. On the other hand, epistemic dire and evocative dire can take place with different types of subjects, but they never take place in the perfect tense or the future tense.

Therefore, our findings are consistent with the grammaticalization view of language which aims to identify the manifestations (i.e., grammatical clues) through which the grammaticalization of a given word/expression can be manifested. In this regard, McWhorter (2008) points out that language does not only involve change in the (grammatical) function, but it is also “accompanied by a reduction in or loss of phonetic substance, loss of syntactic independence and of lexical (referential) meaning” (Fischer & Rosenbach, 2000, p. 2). Relevant research proposes that there exist four major linguistic manifestations of grammaticalization: semantic bleaching (desemanticization), phonetic erosion (phonological reduction), morphological reduction (decategorization), and obligatorification. Semantic bleaching refers to the loss of semantic value or content. Phonetic erosion takes place when the grammaticalized item is subject to the loss of its phonetic substance and to “become more dependent on surrounding phonetic material” (Heine, 2003, p. 106). Morphological reduction refers to the likelihood of grammaticalized items to lose characteristics of their original categories, whereas obligatorification refers to the newly grammaticalized item becoming more obligatory (see Jarrah et al., 2019 for a review). Hopper and Traugott (2003, p. 11) present a framework of the cline of grammaticalization as consisting of the following sequential stages:

1.1.

1. Content word → grammatical word → clitic → inflectional affix

A close inspection of the related literature reveals that the cline of grammaticalization in (1) is supported by the behavior of verbs referring to speech in natural languages. Such verbs, including the verb to say, have been the focus of cross-linguistic research, which aims, among other things, to delineate the grammaticalized or discourse uses of these verbs in addition to their conventional uses as verbs that basically refer to speech (see, e.g., Aikhenvald, 2011; Al-Shawashreh et al., 2021; Hopper & Traugott, 2003; J. Bybee, 1985; Rhee, 2001; Traugott, 1989). The investigation of grammaticalization of verbs referring to speech feeds the arguments of the possible grammaticalization paths which are proven to follow discrete patterns that are not, to a large extent, subject to typological variation. Additionally, this investigation has revealed that speech verbs are grammatical categories that normally undergo grammaticalization, given their remarkable use of quotative predicates and occurrence in natural language discourse.

One look at the related literature of grammaticalization of speech verbs in (Vernacular) French indicates that this area of research is accorded sparse attention (see Franckel, 2015 for discussion). A few studies have explored some aspects of grammaticalization of speech verbs in French. For example, Lansari (2017) explored two emerging discourse markers that are derived from speech verbs in English and French, namely I was going to say and j’allais dire. Lansari (2017) draws on various comparable corpora, proposing that these two discourse markers develop a similar use as “reduced parenthetical clauses” mitigating discourse. Under this use, the two discourse markers are normally associated with a minimal speaker commitment in that the speaker does not claim a full responsibility for the portion of the utterance within the scope of the discourse marker. On the other hand, the study shows that the two markers do not exactly follow the same grammaticalization path because I was going to say unlike j’allais dire stands as a topical transition marker in some of its uses. Consider the following examples.

• (2) a. Ah j’allais dire ça commençait à faire un moment que personne ne ralais (sic) (Lansari, 2017, p. 205)

• b. “Oh I was going to say it had been a while since anyone complained”

• c. No it was erm I was going to say much more natural in, in those days, I suppose in a way it was more natural (Lansari, 2017, p. 206)

The findings of Lansari (2017) demonstrate that the speech verb dire develops new uses which can be scrutinized under the lens of grammaticalization. These new uses are distinct from its use as a verb that refers to speech. This line of analysis raises the question of whether or not the verb dire in French has developed other functions, which is the task that the current article aims to conduct. The present article provides corpus-based evidence that the verb dire develops certain grammaticalized expressive functions, hence offering novel arguments that it loses its semantic content as a verb that only refers to speech.

In section 1, we provide a detailed description of CLAPI (Corpus de Langue Parlée en Interaction) which we depend on for the purpose of this work (i.e., to provide a description of grammaticalization of the verb dire in Vernacular French). Section 3 discusses the use of the verb dire as a lexical verb. Section 4 demonstrates that the verb dire can be used as an epistemic verb (with the meaning think/believe). Under this use, the verb dire only appears in the present tense. In section 5, we show that the verb dire occurs as an evocative verb that expresses the speaker’s emotion towards the addressee’s utterance. Under this use, the verb dire only appears in the present tense. Section 8 proposes that the verb dire develops into a verb that expresses the speaker’s wish or desire. Under this use, the verb dire does not inflect for tense. It also takes place only with the demonstrative subject ça. The verb dire is proposed here to undergo a process of de-categorization (i.e., morphosyntactic reanalysis) which includes a set of processes through which the verb loses its morphosyntactic properties in its way of becoming a grammatical element (J. L. Bybee et al., 1994). Section 7 discusses the use of the verb dire as a copula. Section 8 proposes a grammaticalization path of the verb dire based on the features that the verb loses when it is used beyond its original meaning as a speech verb. Section 9 is the conclusion.

2. Corpus and data collection

This study draws on CLAPI (Corpus de Langue Parlée en Interaction) (Corpus of spoken language in interaction) (http://clapi.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/). CLAPI is a multimedia database of corpora recorded in real situations and in various contexts such as professional, institutional or private, commercial, didactic, and medical contexts in Vernacular French. According to the website of this corpus, CLAPI “is a multimedia database containing corpora that have been recorded in various real situations, such as workplace, institutional, private, commercial, medical and educational interactions … and a set of search tools.” (http://clapi.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/V3_Accueil.php?interface_langue=EN). According to Bert et al. (2010), CLAPI comprises 600 hours of archived interactional data of which 135 hours are integrated into the database. The approximate number of words in this corpus is less than 500.000 (https://www.corpusfinder.ugent.be/corpus/83). This set is particularly rich because of the diversity of documented social situations: there are situations classically studied in interactional linguistics, such as daily conversations and work interactions, but also situations that very rarely appear in databases, including data coming from dental care, property negotiations during divorces as well as situations that cover a wide variety of social practices (such as service interactions, exchanges in shops, etc.). Bert et al. (2010) mention that the value of this corpus lies in the wealth of its primary data (including audio recordings, video data, and multiscope data produced using sophisticated technologies ensuring the synchronized editing of multiple audio and video sources). Both women and men of different age groups are recorded (note that the corpus does not include child language utterances).

One hundred tokens of the most commonly inflected forms of the verb dire were extracted from the corpus, with a total number of 1100 tokens. As is shown in Table 1, dis, dit, disons, dites, disent, and dire were given more attention as they were widely used in the corpus. Therefore, 100 tokens for each form were sought. On the other hand, other forms of the verb dire (future, subjective, conditional, imperfect, and perfect) are less used in the corpus, so 100 tokens for all forms of the same category were sought. We included the first-found tokens of each form of verb dire. CLAPI allows the option FIND A WORD which we used to find the tokens. Our choice to choose 100 tokens of each variant of the verb dire is based on our objective to make a fairly representative number of the tokens of each form.

Table 1. The forms and number of the tokens of the verb dire extracted from CLAPI

FORM	Gloss^2^2	Observations	Number of Ex.
Dis	Say.PRS.1SG/Say.PRS.2SG	speech	67
		epistemic	33
Dit	Say.PRS.3SG/Say.PRS.3INDF^3^3	speech	44
		epistemic	17
		evocative	21
		desiderative	18
Disons	Say.PRS.1PL	speech	81
		epistemic	19
Dites	Say.PRS.2PL	speech	72
		epistemic	28
Disent	Say.PRS.3PL	speech	69
		epistemic	20
		evocative	11
Dire	Say.INF	speech	88
		epistemic	12
dirait, dirais dirais, dirions, diriez, diraient	Conditional	desiderative	83
		copula	17
disais, disait, disions, disiez, disaient	Imperfect	speech	100
dirai, diras, dira Dirons, direz, diront	Future	speech	100
dise, dises, dise, disions, disiez, disent	Subjunctive	speech	100
dis, dit, dîmes, dîtes, dirent	Perfect	speech	100

It should be noted that we did not count the total numbers of the occurrences of the verb dire (including its various morphological forms) in the corpus because this is an extremely difficult task that needs designated teams to finish the work. Additionally, this corpus includes audio-recordings which are not written, something that would complicate our task to count all tokens of this verb (in all of its forms). Additionally, we did not take into consideration whether some uses of the verb dire are more or less linked to specific discourses such as medical. We leave this open for further research.

In the following discussion, we provide a description of the uses of the verb dire in Vernacular French. The translations of all examples are provided by the authors; the corpus does not provide English translations to the utterances. One of the authors is an assistant professor of French linguistics with wide experience in translating French texts into English and vice versa. He got his MA and PhD from Lyon, France. Four native speakers of French who are well-acquainted with English are also asked to provide the translations of all tokens.

3. The verb dire as a speech verb

The verb dire can be used as a verb, which refers to speech, meaning say. Although the verb dire develops more functions of which its semantic content is, to different degrees, bleached (see below), it is still used predominantly as a speech verb. This use supplies supporting evidence that verbs may develop new uses in language while they retain their original uses and meanings. In other words, the original and grammaticalized functions are concurrently used in the same language. In the following example, the verb dire is used as a speech verb in French (the instances of the verb dire are boldfaced throughout the paper)⁴:

(3) il m’aditbenfinalementdepuisl’âgedehuitans/ jeneconnaisplusmesparents/ parce quel’untravaillelematinl’autre travaille lesoir

He finally said to me that since the age of eight I have not known my parents anymore because one [of my parents] works in the morning while the other works in the evening.

Notice here that the speech verb dire can appear in the perfect, present, and future tense. This observation is significant as it indicates that it is still used as a normal (lexical) verb in French (as compared to other uses; see below). Consider the following examples:

(4) a.ouaisi` ditçadansunsketch maisc’estconhein

“Yeah! He says that in a sketch, but it’s stupid eh!”

b. j’aibienentendudesgensquidisent : <nonpourlemoment/jenepeuxpasmeremettreavecmafemme

“I heard people saying: ‘No, not now/I cannot get back to my wife’.”

c. Donceuhon aditeuhonnemangepasbeaucouplesoir

“We said: we do not eat much in the evening.”

d. jevous diraiyalesvoisinsm`sieuretmadameXXXc’estdesgensunpeubizarres

“I will say to you that [our] neighbours Mr. and Mrs. XXX are little weird people.”

In (4a), the verb dire occurs in the present tense (i.e., dit). See also (4b). In (4c), the verb takes place in the perfect tense (i.e., a dit). In (4d), the verb dire occurs in the future tense (i.e., dirai).

The examples in (4) also indicate that the speech verb dire is inflected for agreement (in Person and Number) with its subject as other lexical verbs do. For instance, when a singular subject with first or second person features is used, the form of the verb used becomes dis as shown in the following examples:

• (5) qui sontlesgensquetudisbonjour

“Who are the people you say hello to?”

When the subject is a plural and first-person entity, the form of the verb used is disons, as shown in the following example:

• (6) nous disons “brove” mais en français ils disent “génisse”

“We say “brove”, but in French they say “heifer”.”

Therefore, it can be proposed that the verb dire behaves as other lexical verbs in French. It takes place in all tenses and bears a morphological inflection of its subject. In the following sections, we show that these two features (occurrence in all tenses and inflectability for the subject) are more restricted with other uses of the verb dire, which is a sign that this verb undergoes grammaticalization under these other uses. We start with the use of this verb as an epistemic verb.

4. Dire as an epistemic verb

Based on all examples that we extracted from the corpus, we have evidence that the verb dire can be used as an epistemic verb of thinking, feeling, perceiving, etc. This use of the verb dire can be manifested by the following examples:

• (7) a. - moij`disquelespetitscommercesc’estutileouaispourledépannage

• “I think that small businesses are useful, yeah! when you need something quickly.”

• - ouaisc’estutilepourledépannage

• “Yeah, that’s useful when you need something quickly.”

• b. Je dis qu’il y a symptôme d’une crise/ et je peuxdéjà préciser/ crise sans doute d’une discipline/ bon même sile mot crise euh : est un peu fort/ peut-être/

“I think that there is a symptom of a crisis/and I can already specify/undoubtedly a discipline crisis/good! even if the word crisis is a bit strong/maybe/.”

• c. est-cequealorsvousditesquec’estvotrefilledetempsentempsquivouss`coue comme ça

“So then! you think that it’s your daughter who shakes you like that from time to time.”

When the verb dire is used as an epistemic verb, it (as any other verb in French) is inflected for number and person and tense. For example, when the subject is a singular and first or second-person entity, the form of the verb used is dis, as shown in (8) below:

• (8) non j`disc’estvraiqu`c`teboîte elleestpaspratiquepourc`genre d`truc

“No, I think it’s true that this box is not practical for this sort of things.”

On the other hand, one significant property that distinguishes speech dire from epistemic dire is that epistemic dire does not take place in the past/future tense.⁵ For instance, if the verb dire in examples (7a-7c) is turned into the perfect tense or the future tense, the interpretation of a speech verb is enforced on the verb dire (i.e., the verb no longer expresses espistemicity) as shown in the following made-up examples:

• (9) a. - moi j`ai dit que les petits commerces c’est utile ouais pour ledépannage

• “I said (*thought) that small businesses are useful, yeah! when you need something quickly.”

• - ouaisc’estutilepourledépannage

• “Yeah they are useful when you need something quickly.”

• b. je dirai qu’il y a symptôme d’une crise/ et je peuxdéjà préciser/ crise sans doute d’une discipline/ bon même sile mot crise euh: est un peu fort/ peut-être/

“I will say (*will think) that there is a symptom of a crisis/and I can already specify/undoubtedly a discipline crisis/good! even if the word crisis is a bit strong/maybe/.”

• c. est-cequealorsvousdirezquec’estvotrefilledetempsentempsquivouss`coue comme ça

“So then you will say (*will think) that it’s your daughter who shakes you like that from time to time.”

Therefore, it can be suggested that epistemic dire only appears in the present. In view of this, we propose that this restriction can be taken as a sign of its grammaticalization that affects its ability to inflect for tense.

5. Dire as an evocative verb

The verb dire is also found to express an evocative meaning which is evoking or tending to evoke an especially emotional response (Franckel, 2015, p. 101). Consider the following examples:

• (10) a. saintamourj` saispas si ça t` ditquelque chose

• “Saint Amour, does that mean anything to you?”

• b. çam` ditquelqu`chose [celsius]

• “It means something to me Celsius!”

• c. CLA : ilaimeça … pourl’instantregarde

• “CLA: he likes that ... for the moment look!”

  MIC : çam`ditrien

“MIC:

It means nothing to me!”

Under this use, the verb dire carries an evocative meaning like the verb mean. Unlike the speech verb dire, evocative dire takes place with a specific type of subjects. Phrases like (11a, 11b below) with the subject as a human entity are deemed unaccepted under the use of dire as mean.

• (11) a. Johnmeditquelquechose

• “John says (*does not mean) something to me.”

• b. Patrick teditquelquechose ?

“Patrick says (*means) something to you?”

If the subject is a human, the demonstrative pronoun ça should be used in order to make the sentence grammatical (see 12a-12c), as shown in the following two examples:

• (12) a. John,çameditquelquechose

• “John, this name sounds familiar to me!”

• b. Patrick,çate ditquelquechose ?

• “Patrick, does this name mean anything to you?”

• c. CLA : ilaimeça … pourl’instantregarde

• “CLA : He likes that … for the moment, look!”

• MIC : ça m`dit rien

MIC : It means nothing to me!

Note here that a non-human subject can be used as a direct subject of dire without the use of the demonstrative pronoun ça as shown in (13a, b).

• (13) a. Idéologie,cemotmeditquelquechose

• “Ideology, this word sounds familiar to me!”

• b. Cesvisagesmedisent quelquechose

“These faces look familiar to me.”

Notice here that under this use, only quelque chose (something) and rien (nothing) can be used as the object of the verb. Additionally, the verb dit should be preceded by a personal pronoun or followed by a noun (see Franckel, 1998); otherwise, the sentence would become ungrammatical as shown in (14c, 19d) which are reformulated from (10a, 10b) above:

• (14) a. *saint amourj`saispassiçaditquelquechose

Intended:

“Saint Amour, does that tell anything to you?”

• b. * çaditquelqu`chose [celsius]

Intended:

“It says something Celsius.”

Furthermore, evocative dire does not take place in the perfect tense or in the future. For instance, if the verb dire in examples (12b, 13a) is turned into the perfect tense or the future, the accompanying sentence would be deemed ungrammatical, as shown in the following examples:

• (15) a. *Patrick,çate diraquelquechose ?

Intended:

“Patrick, that will tell you something?”

• b. *Idéologie,cemotm’aditquelquechose

Intended:

“Ideology, that word told me something.”

In summary, evocative dire is sensitive to the type of its subject (human vs. non-human) and the tense of the accompanying clause. Additionally, it only occurs with a specific object. These three properties of this verb can be interpreted as evidence that evocative dire is more restricted in terms of occurrence and distribution than speech dire or epistemic dire. Therefore, we propose that evocative dire undergoes a more advanced stage of grammaticalization than epistemic dire.

6. The verb dire as a desiderative verb

Our tokens reveal that the verb dire in French may function as a desiderative verb, taking into consideration that mean and want are different verbs. This use is necessarily presented as a question and corresponds to a proposal. Franckel (2015, p. 101) proposes that the two interpretations of ça ne me dit rien “this tells me nothing” are: (i) “Evocation” opposes ça me dit quelque chose “it tells me something” and (ii) “Envy” ça ne me dit rien “I don’t really want to do it” which marks the absence of actualization of the verb dire (an appropriation of a representation). This difference is further emphasized by Franckel (1998, p. 54) where he mentions that nothing, for example, makes it possible to relate the two meanings of dire that the ambiguity of a sequence like ça ne me dit rien “It does not evoke anything/It does not tempt me” neither associates with the one that appears in examples as on dirait qu’il va pleuvoir “It looks like it will rain”, disons que je préférerais être en vacances “say that I would prefer to be on vacation”, or say, dites-donc, vous ne pourriez pas faire attention! “So, you could not pay attention!” The diversity of the possible complements of the verb reveals another aspect of the variation of the verb.

One important point to underscore here is that the verb dire is used as a desiderative verb only in the third singular person form; its subject is always the demonstrative pronoun ça, as shown in the following examples.

• (16) a. çam` ditbienunp`titmoelleux

“I would like a little piece of moelleux cake.”

• b. onvaconstruiredesvoitures,çatedit ?

“We will make cars if you want?”

• c. – Çateditdemangeravecnouscesoir ?

“How about eating with us tonight ?”

5.1.

• - désolé,çanemeditrien

“I don’t really want to.”

In (16c), the subject of the verb dire is the demonstrative pronoun ça which is mentioned in the first utterance of the dialogue; the same subject is repeated in the second utterance of the dialogue. The presence of the subject ça is very important since the use of another subject will result in having another meaning (i.e., say) as shown in the following examples:

• (17) a. ilm`ditbienunp`titmoelleux

Intended:

“He says to me a little piece of moelleux cake.”

• b. ilsvousdisent d’aller aucinémacesoir

Intended:

“They ask you to go to the cinema tonight.”

• c. – Paul te ditdemangeravecnouscesoir

Intended:

“Paul asks you to eat with us tonight.”

This use is evidently different from that of dire as an evocative verb above where the verb dire may have a different subject without changing its meaning:

• (18) a. LenomJackme ditquelquechose

“The name Jack means something to me!”

• b. Cesnomsmedisentquelquechose

“These names mean something to me!”

Furthermore, desiderative dire does not take place in the perfect tense or in the future. For instance, if the desiderative dire in examples (17a, 17c) is changed into the perfect tense or the future, the use of the verb dire is deemed ungrammatical as shown in the following examples:

• (19) a. *Çam’a ditbienunpetitmoelleux

Intended:

“That said to me a little piece of moelleux cake.”

• b. *Çateditdemangeravecnouscesoir ?

Intended:

“That will ask/tell you to eat with us tonight?”

In view of this, it can be proposed that desiderative dire is fixed in terms of its morphological form; it only takes place with the demonstrative subject ça. We take this as evidence that desiderative dire has undergone an advanced stage of grammaticalization in comparison to dire as an epistemic or evocative verb.

7. The verb dire as a copula

The verb dire can also be used as a copula in which case it accepts only the pronoun on “we” as a subject. What we mean by a copula is a verb that connects (or links) the subject and its verb, adding meaning of look like to the sentence. In other words, the verb dire here has no semantic meaning. As a copula, it functions as an element that links the subject with its predicate (see Doherty, 1996 for more discussion on the definition and functions of copular elements). Consider the following examples:

• (20) a. çam’afaittroprire,en plus il,ondiraitpaslui.

“It made me laugh too much. He does not also look like him.”

• b. ondiraitunejeune filleelleapasunerideelleestbellecommetoutelleaquatre-vingt-dixans

  “She looks like a young girl who does not have a wrinkle; she is beautiful! she is ninety years-old!”

c. maisjesaisfaireunA,maisregarde,ondiraitunmarteauquand même.

“But I can do an A, but (please) look! It looks like a hammer anyway.”

The verb dire as a copula does not occur in the perfect tense or in the future. For instance, if the verb dire in examples (20a-20c) is turned into the perfect tense or the future, the use of the verb dire is deemed ungrammatical as shown in the following examples:

• (21) a. *çam’afaittroprire,enplusil,onn’apasditlui.

Intended:

“It made me laugh too much, besides, we did not say he.”

• b. *ondiraunejeunefilleelleapasunerideelleest bellecommetoutelleaquatre-vingt-dixans

Intended:

“We will say a young girl who does not have a wrinkle; she is beautiful! she is ninety years-old.”

• c. *maisjesaisfaireunA,maisregarde,on aditunmarteauquandmême.

Intended:

“But I can do an A, but look! We said a hammer anyway.”

The verb dire does not accept other subject pronouns either. For instance, if the verb dire in examples (20a-20c) is conjugated with another subject pronouns, the interpretation of the speech verb is enforced on the verb, as shown in the following examples:

• (22) a. çam’afaittroprire,enplusilne diraitpaslui.

Intended:

“It made me laugh too much. He does not also tell him.”

• b. vousdiriez unejeunefilleelleapasuneride elle estbellecommetoutelleaquatre-vingt-dixans

  “You would say a young girl; she does not have a wrinkle; she is beautiful! she is ninety years old!”

• c. maisjesaisfaireunA,maisregarde,tu diraisunmarteauquandmême.

“But I know how to make an A, but (please) look, you would say a hammer anyway.”

A remark about the positional properties of on dirait here is in order. In almost all examples of on dirait as a copula, on dirait can occur in any position of the sentence, as shown in the following examples:

• (23) a. yauntrucquisèchelàondirait

“It looks that there is something drying there,!”

• b. t`essurtouttrèsmalheureuxondirait

“It seems that you are above all very unhappy!”

• c. Ondiraitqueçac’estunmarteau

“It looks like a hammer!”

Therefore, there are no positional restrictions on the occurrence of copular dire. This property can be taken as evidence that the verb dire as a copula undergoes a more advanced stage of grammaticalization (as an adverbial-like element).

Table 2 below summarizes the remarkable differences between the different forms and uses of the verb dire. For example, desiderative and copular functions of the verb dire can occur with certain subjects, unlike other functions of the verb dire.

Table 2. The different forms and uses of the verb dire

Uses	Subject	Tenses	Positional	Object
Speech	Any subject	Any tense	takes place in the canonical verb position	Takes place with any object
Epistemic	Any subject	only with present tense	takes place in the canonical verb position	Takes place with any object
Evocative	Any subject	only with present tense	takes place in the canonical verb position	Takes place with a specific object
Desiderative	Only with ça	only with present tense	takes place in the canonical verb position	Takes place with a specific object
Copula	Only with on	only with present tense	Takes place in any position in the sentence	Takes place with any object

After having presented the discourse functions of dire in vernacular French, we now propose the following path of grammaticalization for this verb.

8. A suggested grammaticalization path of dire

It is worth mentioning that we propose the following grammaticalization path of the verb dire based on the features the verb loses when it is used beyond its original meaning as a verb referring to speech. As CALPI does not provide diachronic data that could help in tracking the evolution, frequency of occurrence and expansion in the use of the verb dire, we rely only on the synchronic data in the corpus to provide evidence that this verb has developed more functions in discourse (as an epistemic verb, evocative verb, desiderative verb and copula) in addition to its original function as a verb referring to speech. Also, we show that this verb has undergone different stages of grammaticalization depending on the function it expresses in discourse. Thus, our basis in suggesting the grammaticalization path of dire is the number of features that the verb loses when it is used to express one of the aforementioned functions.

As a speech verb, dire is fully inflected for agreement morphemes and can be used in all tenses. This is not surprising as it is used as a full lexical verb. As an epistemic verb, dire is sensitive to agreement morphemes, but it is used only in present tense rather than perfect and future tense. A relatively more advanced stage of grammaticalization is the use of dire as an evocative verb where it is still inflected for agreement but occurs with present tense only. It also requires a specific object and is sensitive to the type of subject with which it occurs. As a desiderative verb, dire occurs only with the demonstrative pronoun ca as its subject and is used only in the present tense. The most advanced stage of grammaticalization is claimed to be in the use of dire as a copula where it is only used in present tense with on as its subject and has no restrictions on its position in the sentence. Based on these facts regarding the number of grammatical features the verb loses when used to express more functions in discourse, we can propose the following grammaticalization path for the verb dire in vernacular French:

• (24) SPEECH VERB>EPISTEMIC VERB>EVOCATIVE VERB>DESIDERATIVE VERB>COPULAR

It is worth mentioning at this point that this state of layering does not mean that the developed functions wipe out the other functions that the verb originally expresses. As shown in the case of dire, all functions co-exist and are used in vernacular French, complying with Hopper’s (1992) principle of layering: “Within a broad functional domain, new layers are continually emerging. As this happens, the older layers are not discarded, but may remain to coexist with and interact with the newer layers” (p. 22).

The functions of the speech verbs as epistemic and evocative verbs are viewed as a result of the process or force of intersubjectification. In other words, the developed functions of dire are taken as a semantic extension of its usage as a speech verb that introduces direct or reported speech into a verb that expresses abstract, mental activities. In this regard, Wang et al. (2003, p. 482) propose that the verb shuo “say” in Taiwan Mandarin “has gradually developed the cognitive meaning ‘to think’.” Likewise, Hsieh (2012) mentions that verbs with the meaning “to say” in Kavalan, Taiwan and Saisiyat (zin, aya and komoS’, respectively) display the SAY-THINK semantic extension. A similar pattern for the speech verbs is detected in Arabic by Al-Shawashreh et al. (2021) who demonstrate that the speech verbs in one dialect of Jordanian Arabic spoken in Irbid can be used as an epistemic verb with a restriction on its use in the past.

The fact that the verb dire in Vernacular French can be used as epistemic and evocative verbs speaks strongly in favor of the notion that SAY-THINK semantic extension is cross-linguistic phenomenon that is present in languages that do not necessarily belong to the same language family. Vernacular French (and Arabic) provides evidence that such SAY-THINK semantic extension comes with a cost as the verb loses its ability to appear in all tenses. Accordingly, we have an argument that SAY-THINK semantic extension should be viewed as a consequence of partial grammaticalization which deprives the verb of one or more of its grammatical features, which is here related to the occurrence in all tenses of the clause.

9. Conclusion

In this research article, we have provided corpus-based evidence that the verb dire in Vernacular French has developed four functions which are different from its original meaning as a verb referring to speech. These four functions include the uses of this verb as an epistemic, evocative, and desiderative verb as well as its use as a copula. We have shown that in each of these functions the verb lost one or more features as compared to its use as a verb referring to speech. For instance, we have shown that epistemic dire does not come in perfect or future tense while evocative dire should collocate with a special subject. Copular dire is more restricted in its distribution and position in the sentence. We have linked this with the theory of grammaticalization that the verb dire is grammaticalized into these functions through the process of intersubjectification.

Statement of interest

This research is not funded by any institution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mousa Awwad

Mousa Awwad is an Assistant professor of French linguistics at the department of French Language and Literature at the University of Jordan. His research interests revolve around grammaticalization, lexicography, and the French sound system.

Marwan Jarrah

Marwan Jarrah is an Associate Professor of theoretical linguistics at the University of Jordan. His main interests include language typology and Syntactic Theory (the Minimalist Program) with a particular focus on A/A`-movement, Phase Theory, Subject/object extraction, Criterial Freezing, and cartography of syntactic structures.

Ekab Al-Shawashreh

Ekab Al‑shawashreh is Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the Department of English Language and Literature at Yarmouk University, Irbid/Jordan. He obtained his PhD in Linguistics from University of Ottawa, Canada. His main research interests lie in the areas of sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics and syntax–prosody interface.

Notes

1. We are extremely grateful to anonymous reviewers whose extensive comments and suggestions helped us shape the article into a much better form and content.

2. Examples in this table are glossed according to the Leipzig Glossing Rules.

3. Dit and dirait are glossed with INDF in their second uses because they come with indefinite pronouns.

4. All examples in this article are from the corpus unless otherwise stated.

5. This claim is based on our tokens. However, It should be noted that evocative/epistemic/desiderative interpretations of dire can be acceptable for some speakers of French while the verb takes place in the perfect or in the future, as pointed out to us by an anonymous reviewer. Therefore, our claim that epistemic dire, evocative dire and desiderative dire do not take place in the perfect or in the future should be taken with caution.