Abstract

Our researches focus on the semantics of natural languages in a cognitive perspective. In this paper, we propose a semantico-cognitive analysis of the French adjective curieux. According to our hypothesis, linguistic items are associated, into the mental lexicon of speakers-hearers, with an organised conceptual structure composed of numerous semantic pieces of information. Our purpose is firstly to propose a conceptual modeling representing its semantic content, and secondly to examine the way sense can be constructed in noun phrases containing curieux. Combined with a substantive, curieux shows strong semantic variations. A diachronic analysis reveals that its different senses are descended from a unique etymon, and stem from a bidirectional semantic evolution so that today curieux presents two main senses: 'Eager to learn' and 'Odd'. We can determine different semantic pieces of information associated with the item curieux: [INTERESTED] for the sense 'eager to learn' (active sense) and [INTERESTING] for the sense 'odd' (passive sense). The active and passive senses are linked by a common concept which can be [INTEREST]. To elaborate the semantic representation of the adjective curieux in a conceptual perspective, we were inspired by the theory of Cognitive Grammar established by R.W. Langacker (1987) and re-using by D. Tuggy (1993). Thus, the concept [INTEREST] shared by the two senses is part of the schematic sense of the adjective curieux and the active and passive senses correspond to elaborations or instantiations of that schematic sense. When the adjective curieux is combined with a noun, it presents either the active sense, either the passive sense. It depends on which pieces of information are activated during the process of sense construction. When [INTERESTED] is selected and activated, curieux has the active sense. When [INTERESTING] is selected and activated, it has the passive sense. The study of many utterances permits us to find regularities in the sense construction of the expressions combining curieux and a noun. Thus, the position of the adjective into the nominal phrase (anteposition or postposition) and the noun category (/animate/ or /inanimate/) allow predicting which sense of curieux will be selected and activated. When curieux is a predicative adjective or an epithet adjective in postposition combined with a noun /animate/, the nominal phrase remains ambiguous. Hearers must resort to a broader linguistic and even extra linguistic context so as to construct the sense of the expression. To conclude, the semantico-cognitive analysis of the adjective curieux and the study of its combinatorial with the substantive lead us to underline the complex mechanisms of sense construction.