Ministry of Highr Education and Scientific Research

University of Imam Jaafar Al-Sadiq

College of Arts- Department of English

(de) Comme Preposition et (de) Comme Quantitatif

Submitted by: Nubras Abdulrazzaq Alawo

Subervised by: Dr. Ridha Alhajjar

June, 2020
Abstract:

The French preposition depuis can be used to express a temporal as well as a

spatial starting point. This paper focuses on its absolute use, i.e. the possibility of
omission of its complement, which is restricted to its temporal meaning. Two
types of analyses have been put forward to deal with the absolute use of
prepositions: adverbial re-categorization on the one hand and post-prepositional
ellipsis or zero anaphora on the other hand. This corpus-based study
demonstrates that both perspectives fail to account for the absolute use of
depuis. Indeed, considering its distribution, semantics and discourse
properties, it is shown that depuis should be more accurately analyzed as an
anaphoric connective when used without a complement. Key words: French,
preposition, absolute use, depuis, anaphoric connective1. IntroductionLa
préposition depuis permet de marquer le point de départ et elle a la particularité,
qu’elle partage avec à partir de et dès, de pouvoir se construire avec des noms ou
adverbes de sens temporel aussi bien que de sens spatial:

(1) Quatre-vingt-sept personnes ont été enlevées en Colombie depuis le début de

l’année. (legaro.fr)

(2) Depuis la porte, on ne voyait rien, il fallait au voyageur toute l’audace de SG1
pour venir jusque dans cet endroit reculé. (Google)Ces exemples illustrent en
outre le fait que le syntagme introduit par depuis ne localise pas explicitement
l’ensemble du procès exprimé par le prédicat verbal, mais uniquement la borne
gauche de l’intervalle

De is an essential and versatile preposition that allows you to say "of" in

French, "some," or simply an unspecified quantity. But that's not all; de has many
different meanings and uses in French. As a preposition, it lets you construct a
number of noun and verb phrases.

The French preposition de is required after certain verbs and phrases when
they are followed by an infinitive.

And de is required after many French verbs and phrases that need an
indirect object, Keep in mind that de plus a noun can be replaced by the adverbial
pronoun en. For example, J'en ai besoin. I need it.

Common Uses of 'de'

1. Possession or belonging

le livre de Paul > Paul's book

 la bibliothèque de l'université > the university library

2. Starting point or origin

partir de Nice > to leave from Nice

Je suis de Bruxelles. > I'm from Brussels.

3. Contents / description of something

une tasse de thé > cup of tea

un roman d'amour > love story (story of/about love)

4. Defining feature

le marché de gros > wholesale market

une salle de classe > classroom

le jus d'orange > orange juice

5. Cause

fatigué du voyage > tired from the trip

1 The basic rules

du, de la, de l’ and des can all be used to give information about the amount or
quantity of a particular thing. They are often translated into English as some or
any.

In French, you choose between du, de la, de l’ and des, depending on

whether the noun is masculine or feminine, singular or plural. with masculine
nounwith feminine nounSingulardu (de l’)de la (de l’)Pluraldesdes Tipde + le and
de la change to de l’ when they are used in front of a word starting with a vowel,
most words starting with h, and the French word y.

du is used in front of masculine singular nouns.

du beurre(some/any) butterdu jus d’orange(some/any) orange juice

Note that du is also a combination of de + le and has other meanings, such as

saying who something belongs to or where something is from.

For more information on du, see à, de and en.

de la is used in front of feminine singular nouns.

de la viande(some/any) meatde la margarine(some/any) margarine

de l’ is used in front of singular nouns that start with a vowel and most nouns
starting with h, whether they are masculine or feminine.

de l’argent (masculine)(some/any) moneyde l’eau (feminine)(some/any) waterde

l’herbe (feminine)(some/any) grass

des is used in front of plural nouns, whether they are masculine or feminine and
whatever letter they start with.

des gâteaux(some/any) cakesdes lettres(some/any) lettersdes hôtels(some/any)

hotels

Note that des is also a combination of de + les and has other meanings, such as
saying who something belongs to or where something is from.