Abstract EN:

The preverb can be defined as "the prefix of a verb". It is appropriate to apprehend it like an "element of relation" bringing into contact an "entity-located" and an "entity-landmark" within the framework of a process. A confrontative study of preverbs ad-, in-, ob and per- in the class of the verbs of agentive movement makes it possible to characterize the specific value of each one. We note in particular that ob- knows another value that the one of "face-to-face" : the "covering", which seems closer to original meaning of the preverb. In addition, the difference between "approach" and "entry" is not enough to return account of what opposes ad- and in- : the first one often underlines the initial distance between entity-located and entity-landmark, while the "double limit" can apply to an easy access or give a touch of hostility. Owing to the semantic study of the preverbs, we can establish some characteristics which concern more largely the preverb: constitution of paradigmatic series, semantic principle of affinity, continuum between "internal range" and "external range", importance of the geometrical representation lent to the referent of the landmark. A last questioning relates to the links between the preverb and the verbal base. It seems that it is necessary to give up lending to the preverb of an inchoative verb an aspectual value: it is rather the range of the assignment of the subject by the predicated transformation which is characterized by the preverb. In the parasynthesis, the prefixal element seems to be a functional preverb. Syntactically, duplication does not seem to be a free alternative, but always finds a justification, whether it concerns the expressivity whether the constraints related to the semantics of the roles. Not being neither a preposition nor a "co-verb", the preverb largely deserves a specific study. The preverbation, processus of lexical creation, fits then in the more general question of the modeling of reality through the language.