Abstract EN:

This thesis aims at describing french verbal auxiliaries. This description is put back in a broader range of questions concerning what linguistics considers as simple and complex. One of the major topics discussed in the first part is the question of the styles of description. We show that ita corresponds to a configurational approach,while both itp and wap are coined with a processual approach. Does the morphology constitute a system of its own,with categories and rules distinguished from those of syntax? the second part answers positively to this question and argues that the classical morphemic approach is unsuited to account for describing morphological phenomena,whatever they are. A detailed and formal account of most derivational phenomena in french is given, including those with truncation,allomorphy or suppletion. A treatment is proposed of the so-called parasynthetic forms. Bracketing paradoxes are also discussed at length. The third part begins with a criticism of the most influential analyses of french auxiliaries. In the following chapters, it is argued that complex verb forms involve a left side recursion and a configurational representation. Dur analysis gives a principled explanation of why there is no form with more than two temporal auxiliaries. The various surface forms of simple verbal tenses are accounted for through the application of chained functions. The verbal terminations are not affixes but the exponence of grammatical features carried by the verb.