French Language Studies 5 (1995), 31-56.

Copyright © Cambridge University Press

Puis in spoken French: from time

adjunct to additive conjunct?
MAJ-BRITT MOSEGAARD HANSEN
University of Copenhagen
(Received I4_|uly 1994; revised 12 October 1994)

ABSTRACT

In this paper I present an analysis of the discourse connectivepMi's, as it is used

in (relatively) informal spoken French. I argue that this item has been (and
possibly still is) subject to a process of grammaticalization, whereby its basic
function has changed from that of a time adjunct to that of an additive
conjunct taking discourse acts in its scope, with the further possibility that it
may be moving towards becoming a true conjunction. I moreover hypo-
thesize that the meaning of conversational puis may be represented as a set of
instructions, directing the hearer to search for two and only two elements to
be connected, and to understand these two elements to be of separate
relevance to a common integrator.

I. INTRODUCTION

The present paper concerns the discourse marker puis,1 as it is used in spoken
French. The following example is representative:
(1) . . . on en a vu quand meme pas mal des Egyptiens puis on avait le personnel
Egyptien et tout sur le bateau et tout . . . (VE: 37)2
The analysis presented here forms part of a research project on the
distribution and semantics of discourse particles such as puis, alors, bon, ben,
eh bien, etc. in spoken French (see also Hansen, forthcoming a and b), and is
based almost entirely on authentic, non-elicited examples drawn from taped
1
In some of my examples, the marker is realized phonetically as [pi], which I consider a free
variant.
2
I have taken the liberty of 'simplifying' the transcriptions at various points, for the
convenience of the untrained reader: thus, phoneticized orthography has been changed to
conform to the standard, and many hesitations, repetitions and pauses have been deleted when
not in the immediate environment of puis. In all examples, the marker commented on is in
italics. The following symbols have been used: & and && indicate the beginning and end of
overlap, respectively (where several instances of overlap follow one another, § and §§ are also
used to distinguish them);, and ,, indicate short and somewhat longer pauses. I would like to
thank Professor Mary-Annick Morel of the University of Paris III, for allowing me access to
the corpora used.

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 M.-B. Hansen

verbal interactions between native speakers only. My data are of various

kinds, from spontaneous conversations between friends, through radio and
television debates, to one university lecture, but all share the property of
being of a relatively informal nature, conducive to the use of markers of this
type. The kind of French represented is that of educated Parisian speakers,
and since I am interested exclusively in determining the semantics of each
particle, no attempt has been made to correlate the appearance of particular
discourse markers with static demographic characteristics, such as age, sex,
level of education, or geographical origin of the speakers.
I follow Schiffrin (1987: 31) in defining discourse markers operationally as
'sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk'. The size of
these units is variable, and they do not necessarily correspond to single (or
even complete) utterances. Like Fraser (1990: 387), I moreover define them
functionally as 'one type of commentary pragmatic marker . . . a class of
expressions, each of which signals how the speaker intends the basic message
that follows to relate to prior discourse'. I thus regard these items as a
particular kind of connectives, whose scope is in principle free, in so far as
they may connect units both below and above the level of the utterance, and
may in fact sometimes connect to extralinguistic elements. It should be noted
in this context that the category of discourse markers is a pragmatic, and not
a morphosyntactic one (cf. Lamiroy and Swiggers, 1991: 123), since items
which may be used as markers may belong to quite different distributional
classes (e.g. adverbs: puis, alors, imperatives: tiens!, ecoute!, sentence frag-
ments: tu sais, etc.), and since individual markers do not necessarily show
similar syntactic behaviour.
Two properties are characteristic of discourse markers: one is that,
although they do have a syntax to the extent that they are not free to occur
just anywhere in the sentence, they do not create, nor are they subject to any
syntactic dependencies, and they may thus be deleted without making the
utterance ungrammatical. The other is that they do not enter into the
propositional content of their host utterances: markers do not refer, nor are
they capable of affecting truth-conditions. It seems, therefore, that their
semantics is best described in instructional (or 'operational') terms, i.e. as
instructions given by the speaker to the hearer on how to manipulate the
conceptual or propositional content of the stretch of discourse marked, with
a view to integrating it into a coherent mental model (for analogous views,
cf. Ducrot et al., 1980; Lang, 1984; Blakemore, 1987). In other words, they
should be seen as activating procedural, rather than representational
knowledge.
It is often noted that markers of the type I am interested in show some
degree of polyfunctionality. A certain tradition in French linguistics (begin-
ning with Giilich, 1970; cf. also Auchlin, 1981a and b) takes it that they are,
in fact, deprived of semantic content, and are used merely as turn-taking or

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 Puis in spoken French

framing devices. Koch and Oesterreicher (1990: 51-71), seemingly the latest
manifestation of this line of thought, set up seven different categories of
'discourse words', and it seems that not only may one and the same form be a
member of several of these categories, but the members of each are
essentially interchangeable. Now, quite apart from the fact that the typology
postulated lacks a unifying principle (some categories seem to have a mainly
structural function, others an interactional, a cognitive, or a modal one), this
approach seems to be of little explanatory value, and it is my claim that (1)
different items do have distinct coded content, expressible, as noted above,
in terms of instructions, and (2) it is possible to formulate these instructions
so as to capture all uses of a single item, thereby avoiding an explanation in
terms of homonymy.

2. SYNTAX OF PUIS
Diachronically, puis originates in the Latin preposition/time adverb post.
According to the Tresor de la langue francaise (1990), French puis is derived,
not from post itself, but from the non-attested comparative form *postius.
Chevalier and Molho (1986: 29) question this received wisdom, and propose
instead to derive the particle from Latin postea, since, in their analysis, puis
involves an anaphoric element (= ea, surviving as the 'i' in puis). On phonetic
grounds, there is apparently little to choose between the two competing
etymologies (S. Hendrup, personal comment), and that proposed by Cheva-
lier and Molho would seem to fit my own analysis better (cf. infra). The item
apparently retained both its prepositional and its adverbial use into sixteenth-
century French (Gougenheim, 1951: 173-174). In Modern French, however,
the prepositional use has been entirely lost, and time adverbs being more
'lexical' than prepositions, one might say that puis has, in that sense, been
'degrammaticalized' (cf. Heine et al., 1991: 4). However, it has, in another
sense, been more strongly grammaticalized, in so far as its position is now
fixed clause-initially, whereas Old and Middle French adverbial puis could
occupy various positions in the clause. The particle has, in other words,
suffered a loss in syntagmatic variability (cf. Lehmann, 1985: 308). Both its
prepositional and non-clause-initial adverbial uses have in Modern French
been taken over by depuis.
Now, what is noteworthy is that in contemporary spoken French, the
temporal meaning ofpuis seems to have more or less disappeared, yielding to
a use of the marker as essentially an additive conjunct. Thus, of the 122
examples in my corpora, only 27 (i.e. less than a quarter) involve any kind of
succession in time, and what is more, in many examples the temporal
interpretation is only possible, but not necessary, whereas when it is
necessary, puis is often accompanied by a time adverb such as apres or ensuite.
Witness the following examples:

33
 M.-B. Hansen

No succession in time:
(2) . . . on voit des politiciens de gauche qui vous disent c'est extraordinaire c'est un
vrai portrait sincere de Mitterrand etpuis elle a et elle a pas parle de la vie privee de
Mitterrand . . . (MP: 5)

Possibility of succession in time:

(3) A: on est rentrees a la fac et puis y avait des livres sur les etageres
B: oui
A: tu te souviens
B: oui
A: etpuis le gars i/je lui ai dit mais je vous l'acheterai demain, et il a dit mais non
moije vous fais pas confiance, tu te souviens (CT: 11)

Explicit succession in time:

(4) . . . done on a fait cette partie-la puis les souks, evidemment,, et puis apres on a
quitte Le Caire pour aller, a Thebes (VE: 20)

This seems to indicate that in many cases a temporal interpretation

might perhaps be due not to the presence of puis, but rather to some
principle of inference or iconicity, such as that which allows us to infer
temporal or causal connections between propositions connected by and and
its equivalents in other languages, although such connections are probably
not adequately explained by postulating an ambiguity of the word and
itself (cf. Posner, 1980). To the extent that the understanding of a time
adjunct involves the activation of conceptual knowledge, while additive
conjuncts involve strategies of text manipulation, I would like to suggest
that puis is, in effect, undergoing a process of further grammaticalization in
contemporary spoken French. This is compatible with Traugott's (1982:
256) hypothesis that 'if there occurs a meaning-shift which, in the process
of grammaticalization, entails shifts from one functional-semantic com-
ponent to another, then such a shift is more likely to be from propositional
through textual to expressive than in the reverse direction'. It is further
supported by the fact that the marker is very often realized as [pi] rather
than [pqi] (cf. note 1 above), since it is well-known that items commonly
suffer phonetic erosion in the course of grammaticalization (cf. Heine et al.,
1991:214).
The evolution just sketched is not unproblematical, however, The distinc-
tion between adjuncts, disjuncts and conjuncts, which goes back to Green-
baum (1969; for an application of Greenbaum's hypotheses to French, cf.
Mordrup 1976), is based on syntactic criteria. Thus, adjuncts, but not
sentence adverbials (dis- and conjuncts), can serve as the focus of clause
interrogation or negation, or as the focus of a cleft sentence, while conjuncts
are moreover distinct from disjuncts in their inability to serve as a response
to a yes/no question (accompanied by yes or no). Now, apres (which should

34
 Puis in spoken French

be analogous to temporal puis in indicating posteriority) patterns as an

adjunct:
(5) Jean n'est pas parti a huit heures. Est-il parti apres?
(6) Presque tout le monde est arrive a huit heures. Quant a Jean, on ne l'a pas vu a ce
moment-la - ni apres, d'ailleurs
(7) Jean n'est pas parti a huit heures. - C'est apres qu'il est parti
All these sentences are perfectly grammatical. However, puis, even on a
temporal interpretation, does not pattern as an adjunct, but rather as a
conjunct:
(8) Jean n'est pas parti a huit heures. *Est-il parti puis?
(9) Presque tout le monde est arrive a huit heures. *Quant a Jean, on ne l'a pas vu a
ce moment-la - ni puis, d'ailleurs
(10) Jean n'est pas parti a huit heures. * - C'est puis qu'il est parti.
As Nolke (1990:21) argues, this property of non-focalizability is natural to
what he calls 'contextual adverbials' (a class which contains sentence
adverbials in the strict sense as a proper subset), since such items constitute a
comment on some aspect of their host utterance, and do therefore not
normally involve the notion of contrast. Now, Blumenthal (1975) draws
attention to the fact that even certain adverbs that are usually thought of
semantically as adjuncts may likewise be non-contrastive (his term is
'null-paradigmatic'), and fulfil the pragmatic function of theme in an
utterance, and he mentions depuis and puis as exclusively thematic adverbs.
This supports Nolke's suggestion (1990: 20) that a meaningful classification
of adverbials should proceed from semantico-pragmatic criteria and use
syntactic tests not as an end in themselves, but only as a means of anchoring
one's analyses in linguistic form. 3
However, analysing puis as having originally been a time adjunct is also
problematical from a semantic point of view: Ek and Robat (1984: §8.3)
propose what they refer to as a 'postponement test' to distinguish adjuncts
from sentence adverbials. The test, which is really of a semantic, rather than
a syntactic nature, consists in paraphrasing the original sentence as it is true
that [sentence], and seeing whether the adverbial tested comes within the
'postponed' subject clause, in other words whether it is part of the propo-
sitional content of the sentence or not. Again, when this test is applied to
French, apres patterns as an adjunct, whereas puis does not:
(11) Jean est arrive a huit heures. Apres/puis il est parti.
(12) Jean est arrive a huit heures. II est vrai qu apres il est parti.
(13) Jean est arrive a huit heures. *I1 est vrai que puis il est parti.
3
It is interesting that ensuite, which is often cited as a (near-)synonym of puis, patterns
somewhere between the latter and apres, at least when care is taken to ensure that the focus of
test sentences does indeed fall on the adverb, and not on the verb phrase (cf. Blumenthal, 1975:
322).

35
 M.-B. Hansen

And our problems do not end here: Nolke (1989, 1990) establishes three
categories of sentence adverbials, viz. 'connectors' (FR: 'adverbiaux connec-
teurs'), 'illocutionary adverbials' (FR: 'adverbiaux d'enonciation'), and
'locutionary adverbials' (FR: 'adverbiaux d'enonce'). The first group is said
to connect the host utterance with one or more other utterances (or utterance
acts). The second type of adverbials bear on various non-truth-conditional
aspects of the utterance act, without establishing a direct relation to the
co-text. And, finally, items of the third category comment on the propo-
sitional content of the utterance, for instance by indicating the speaker's
attitude towards the proposition expressed. The adverbials of each category
may then in principle be distinguished with the aid of formal tests, although
Nolke does note (1990: 26) that it is often difficult to separate connectives
from illocutionary adverbials in this manner, since, in a great many cases, the
former also bear on the act of utterance to some extent.
One of the tests mentioned in the article (1990: 23-24.) is a positional one.
In the (rather unlikely) sentence 'Entre nous, c'est done sans doute toujours
exactement a midi que le gardien quitte la banque', we find that the normal
order of adverbials is as follows: illocutionary adverbial, connector,
locutionary adverbial, frequency adverbial (not a sentence adverbial), and
'paradigmatic' adverbial (a contextual, but not a sentence adverbial).4 Now,
by this criterion, puts should be an illocutionary adverbial, and not a
connective, as I have claimed above, since, in the sentence quoted, puis could
replace entre nous, but not done. Although puis is intuitively felt to be a
connective, this does not necessarily invalidate the positional test. Two (not
necessarily mutually exclusive) explanations are possible: either puis strad-
dles the categories of connectives and illocutionary adverbials (this possi-
bility is implicit in Chevalier and Molho's (1986) analysis, cf. infra), or it is
closer than most conjuncts to being a true conjunction.
The latter explanation is supported by the fact that, in the collocation et
puis, the two elements cannot be separated, neither by a pause, nor by
another element, contrary to what is the case for ensuite, for instance (cf.
Blumenthal 1975: 324). This could be a sign of incipient coalescence, which,
according to Lehmann (1985: 308) is one of the formal characteristics of
grammaticalized elements. Moreover, if puis has some of the properties
usually associated with conjunctions, we can understand the inacceptability
of (13) above as being syntactic in origin, rather than having to do with
whether puis contributes to propositional content or not, since it would be
odd for a coordinating conjunction {puis) to follow immediately upon a
subordinating one (que) in the same clause. In fact, some grammarians do
classify puis with the coordinating conjunctions (Van Hout, 1974: 336-337).
On the other hand, such a classification is questionable, on the grounds that
coordinating conjunctions cannot normally be combined, either (cf. Dik,

4
For a definition and analysis of'paradigmatic adverbs' in French, cf. Nolke (1983).

36
 Puis in spoken French

1968: 34), and puis, as already noted, is readily combined with et, whose
status as a conjunction is not in doubt. 5
What we should perhaps conclude, given these facts, is that the bound-
aries between word-classes may be fluid, allowing puis to behave in some
respects like a time adjunct, in others like a sentence adverb, and in others
again like a conjunction. Seen in the context of a grammaticalization hypo-
thesis, there is in fact nothing particularly strange about this, and the marker
at its present stage might be described as a 'hybrid form', that is to say that it
has reached a stage of evolution where it does not quite belong in either its
source category (time adjunct) or its target category (conjunction) (cf.
Heine et al., 1991:231-233).

3. SEMANTIC-PRAGMATIC PROPERTIES OF PUIS

Based on the examples in my corpora, I would like to argue that puis, when
functioning as an additive conjunct in spoken French, indicates, on the one
hand, that two and only two elements are being coordinated, and, on the
other hand, that these two elements should be interpreted as separately rele-
vant, in the sense of Sperber and Wilson (1986).
In support of the first part of this hypothesis, Vet (1980: 149-150) analy-
ses temporal puis in d'abord . . . puis as invariably introducing the last
element of an ordered series (in contrast to ensuite, which merely indicates
posteriority), with d'abord introducing the first. A construction such as
d'abord Si, puis S2, ensuite S3 would then, according to Vet, be semantically
anomalous. If the temporal aspect is left out of consideration, puis then
comes to mark the last element in a coordination. This, of course, entails
that if two or more utterances in a sequence are all introduced by puis, then
the relationship between them must be hierarchical, rather than linear, and
this seems, in fact, to be borne out by my data (cf. section 3.1, exx.
(23)-(26)). If puis, moreover, links only two elements, then it must be the
case that either whatever precedes or whatever follows the marker in a par-
ticular discourse move can be understood as forming a whole, even if it
consists superficially of two or more parts. In this, puis is unlike et, as shown
by the following examples (inspired by Laurandeau 1983: 20), where puis
seems to indicate that the conjoined adjectives belong to different concep-
tual categories, whereas et seems to place them in the same over-arching
category:
(14) Le drapeau franc,ais est bleu, blanc et rouge
(15) ?Le drapeau francais est bleu et blanc, et puis rouge
(16) ?Ce drapeau est bleu, blanc, rouge et effrange
(17) Ce drapeau est bleu, blanc et rouge, et puis effrange

5
On the other hand, it does not seem to accept combination with the other coordinating
conjunctions mats, oil and car (if the latter is, indeed, a coordinating conjunction).

37
 M.-B. Hansen

In argumentative discourse, puis thus often seems to have a 'clincher'-

effect, because, if it introduces the last argument in a series, it will indicate
that all the previous arguments constitute a single undifferentiated whole,
and it is then only a small step to infer that the argument following the
marker is considered to be the decisive one.
I hypothesized above thatpuis carries a second aspect of meaning, namely
that the two elements coordinated are separately relevant. Relevance, in
Sperber and Wilson's (1986) theory, is a comparative concept defined by a
processing cost/benefit analysis: the greater the number of contextual
effects derivable by the addressee of a given utterance (all other things being
equal), the greater its relevance. At the same time, the smaller the cognitive
effort needed to arrive at an interpretation of the utterance (all other things
being equal), the greater its relevance.
Interpretation is always linguistically underdetermined, because context,
which is seen as a variable, is a constitutive part of the interpretation process.
Relevance, in this theory, is thus not a property of utterances as such, but
rather a relation between utterances and their context.
The context is defined as a subset of all the propositions constituting the
'cognitive environment' of an individual (i.e. all the assumptions that are
manifest to him; that is to say, all those which he either knows or believes to
be true, is capable of inferring, or would be willing to endorse if they were
brought to consciousness). When interpreting an utterance, the hearer
constructs the context which seems likely to yield the greatest number of
contextual effects at the smallest processing cost.
There are three types of contextual effects: (1) deduction of one or more
'contextual implications', i.e. hitherto unknown assumptions, from the
utterance in question; (2) a strengthening of an already existing contextual
assumption; or (3) the contradiction of an already existing contextual
assumption, leading to deletion or at least weakening of the latter. Thus, for
instance, ifjohn has no idea that Mary plays an instrument, and he then hears
her say, 'I'm practising one of Bach's flute sonatas these days', he may derive
the assumption that she plays the flute. If, on the other hand, John already
thinks that Mary plays theflute,but is not sure, the utterance will strengthen
his existing assumption. Conversely, if he thinks she plays the flute, but then
hears her say, 'I hate the sound of the flute', his original assumption will be
weakened, and probably deleted. It should be noted that contextual effects
are not necessarily derived from the propositional content of an utterance,
but may result from its illocutionary force, or even from the mere fact that it
has been uttered.
Blakemore (1987: 120) analyses utterances conjoined by and as indicating
to the hearer that 'the conjoined proposition that is expressed has relevance
over and above the relevance of each conjunct taken individually . . . the
hearer of a conjoined utterance receives no guarantee that each of the conjuncts is
relevant' (emphasis mine). This would seem to be in line with Lang's (1984: 7)

38
 Puis in spoken French

claim that 'the semantic interpretation of a given coordinate structure is more

than the sum (or list) of its individually interpreted parts'. Central to Lang's
analysis is the idea of a so-called 'common integrator' which must be set up
in the process of interpreting a series of conjuncts, and which is supposed to
cover all the conjuncts from a particular point of view (1984: 27). Now, I
would argue that when puis is added to, or substitutes for, et, the relevance of
the whole to a common integrator remains, but the component utterances or
utterance parts do come with a guarantee of individual relevance.
The reason for this is that, as Chevalier and Molho (1986: 27), who are
concerned only with the temporal sense of puis, note, this particle differs
from a conjunction like et by dissociating what it conjoins: elements
conjoined by this marker belong to two distinct acts of utterance. 6 If two
utterances conjoined by (et) puis should nevertheless be understood as being
relevant to a common integrator, making puis compatible with et, it is in my
view due to the anaphoric element which Chevalier and Molho claim is
inherent in the etymology of puis (cf. section 2 above). Puis would then refer
back to an immediately preceding bit of discourse, the understanding of
which would be necessary for the following to achieve relevance. This
would account for the fact that et, when followed by puis, is asymmetric, i.e.
the order of the conjuncts cannot be reversed, contrary to what is the case
with the logical connective '&' (cf. Blumenthal, 1975: 324n). The asym-
metricity of the additive conjunct (as opposed to that of the time adverb) is
not, however, of a truth-conditional nature, but has to do, rather, with
thematic structure: like certain discourse connectives in English (cf. Warner,
1985: 45), puis may be said to 'identify' the first sentence of a discourse
fragment as the given to which the second sentence is to be related'. In other
words, to the extent that the order of two utterances connected by (et) puis
can be reversed at all, the argumentative status of the utterances will change,
as in the following:
(18) B: mais l'histoire de collaboration de Gaston Gallimard elle est comme son
choix (h) parce qu'il prenait toujours des des deja lui un des premiers a prendre
des livres a grand spectacle pour pouvoir faire vivre ses livres difficiles (h) et il a
publie des collaborateurs notoires et qui ont ete fusilles ou qui se sont suicides (h)
et puis en meme temps dans le meme temps dans la meme collection (h) il avait
Malraux euh il avait des gens qui l'ont sauve
A: enfin il a ete mille fois plus habile
B: ah oui
A: que Bernard Grasset (MP: 23)
(18') B: mais l'histoire de collaboration de Gaston Gallimard elle est comme son
choix (h) parce qu'il prenait toujours des des deja lui un des premiers a prendre
6
These authors do not make it clear whether their approach to the notion of 'utterance' is a
static or a dynamic one (cf. Nelke, 1994: 37). I will adopt a dynamic perspective, where a
single act of utterance can be assumed to have been planned by the speaker as one semantically
and pragmatically complete message, to which a second message may subsequently be added,
possibly resulting in a restructured interpretation of the first one.

39
 M.-B. Hansen

des livres a grand spectacle pour pouvoir faire vivre ses livres difficiles (h) et il
avait Malraux euh il avait des gens qui l'ont sauve (h) et puis en meme temps
dans le meme temps dans la meme collection (h) il a publie des collaborateurs
notoires et qui ont ete fusilles ou qui se sont suicides
A: ?? enfin il a ete mille fois plus habile que Bernard Grasset
B's utterances in (18) and (18') may be equivalent as to truth-conditional
meaning, but as the oddity of A's reaction in (18') shows, they are
pragmatically quite different.
The property of being able to mark an independently relevant act of
utterance can be seen to grow out of the temporal use of puis: linguistic
expressions being linear, such a new and independent act of utterance
normally succeeds the previous one in time. 7 The use of puis as an additive
conjunct may then perhaps be analysed as an example of a 'metaphor of
grammar' (Heine etal., 1991: 2O4ff), where a succession of events in the real
world is used as a vehicle for the expression of discourse structure, the
vehicle being of a less abstract nature than the topic.
The hypotheses developed here must now be applied to examples from
my corpora. The examples fall into three categories: occurrences of puis
between two semantically complete utterances by one speaker; occurrences
of puis at the very beginning of a turn at talk (where the marker connects its
host utterance to the turn of the previous speaker); and, finally, occurrences
of puis between constituents of a single sentence.

3.1. Puis connects two utterances by the same speaker

T h e following examples (i8")-(2i) show a clearly binary structure, where

the t w o members of the coordinated pair are of independent relevance:
(18") A: . . . Assoulineesttreshonnetepuisqu'ilraconte que toute l'edition franchise
toute l'edition et toute la profession
B: a collabore
A: a part les Caiman-Levy ont & collabore &&
C: & ah et && pour cause

B: mais l'histoire de collaboration de Gaston Gallimard elle est comme son

choix (h) parce qu'il prenait toujours des des deja lui un des premiers a prendre
des livres a grand spectacle pour pouvoir faire vivre ses livres difficiles (h) et il a
publie des collaborateurs notoires et qui ont ete fusilles ou qui se sont suicides
(h) et puis en meme temps dans le meme temps dans la meme collection (h) il
avait Malraux euh il avait des gens qui l'ont sauve
A: enfin il a ete mille fois plus habile
B: ah oui
A: que Bernard Grasset (MP: 23)

7
I use the qualifier 'normally', because the two utterance acts may sometimes be fused into one:
Chevalier and Molho (1986: 27) note that to the extent that an utterance such as Le marquis,

40
 Puis in spoken French

There are two aspects to the argument here: the utterance preceding puis
achieves relevance by confirming part of speaker A's initial assertion, and
thereby increasing the strength of any assumptions derived therefrom. The
utterance following puis adds new information, which nevertheless takes its
point of departure in the previous utterance (this is marked explicitly by the
adverbial en mime temps). The example moreover demonstrates that conver-
sational puis does not have temporal succession as an inherent semantic
feature, since its combination with en mime temps appears to involve no
contradiction.
(19) A: . . . y a-t-il ou non deux lectures de cette fameuse declaration signee il y a
tout juste une semaine,, Roland Leroy
B: ben a mon avis y a pas deux lectures y a une seule lecture, et Georges
Marchais en parlant hier a la S. K. F. d'lvry s'est inscrit tout a fait dans le sens de
la declaration qui confirme les accords de 1981 parce que je rappelle que le
contenu de la declaration commune de la semaine passee, de la semaine demiere,
ce sont les accords de 1981, et: puis euh la declaration elle-meme indique
clairement de quoi il s'agissait. . . (VS2: 20-21)
Here we see an example of how utterances introduced by puis may clinch
an argument. I do not believe, however, that such a 'clincher'-effect should
be part of the semantic description of the marker, since it is not discernible in
all examples, and seems in any case to be simply a consequence of a natural
rhetorical strategy consisting in saving stronger arguments for last. Dis-
course markers like puis are not, in my view, inherently argumentative,
unlike items such as mais, parce que and others, which have been studied
primarily by Oswald Ducrot and his collaborators (cf. Ducrot et al. 1980;
Anscombre and Ducrot 1983), and which are said to mark utterances as
constituting either an argument or a possible conclusion in discourse.
(20) A: mais c'est vrai que pour la construction des pyramides c'est probable & que:
&&
B: & c'est possible && que ce soit uniquement le peuple § mais j'ai lu des
bouquins moi un petit peu parce que j'aime bien lire §§
A: § pas uniquement le peuple alors bon euh §§
B: c'est des bouquins qui parlent un peu d'Egypte tu vois j'en ai lu un peu en
rentrant parce que ca stimule un peu qa, (h) etpuiij'ai vu que: apparemment c'est
vrai ils disaient que c'etaient les paysans pendant les periodes de crues ouais (VE:
43-44)
The context of this example is a discussion between two women, one of
them (A) a history teacher, and the other one (B) having just returned from a
trip to Egypt, about whether or not the Ancient Egyptians had slaves. The

puis Charlotte entrerent is grammatical, it may only be understood as the answer to two
successive questions, as in: - Que fit le marquis? - II entra. - Puis que fit Charlotte? - Elle entra
(aussi). This may perhaps be made clearer by the following example: Jean et puis Marie sont
maries, which can only be understood to mean that they are not married to one another.

41
 M.-B. Hansen

utterance preceding puts here may not seem to be independently relevant at

first sight, but in fact there is a strong sense of competition, running through
the entire conversation, as to who knows more about Ancient Egyptian
culture and history, and it is therefore quite probable that B is trying to make
a point when she8 emphasizes the fact that, not only has she visited the
country, but she has also taken the time to read a number of books about it,
and that this fact is intended to have contextual effects of its own.
(21) . . . nous sommes en direct de Bourg-en-Bresse ou se deroule vous le savez le
congres du Parti Socialiste un congres du Parti Socialiste domine cet apres-midi
par Lionel Jospin que vous avez entendu tout a l'heure Lionel Jospin qui a
interpelle tres directement le Parti Communiste lui a demande en quelque sorte
de fournir des explications sur les divergences exprimees depuis un moment (h)
ttpuis cet apres-midi aussi, ou ici on a reussi un peu a s'informer sur cet article du
Monde qui faisait etat peut-etre etat d'ame de Monsieur Fiterman, alors Roland
Leroy sans vous demander peut-etre tout de suite j'allais dire le contenu de
l'editorial de L'Humanite de demain matin j'ai tout de meme envie de vous
demander si vous avez passe un bon apres-midi (VSi: 1)
This example is interesting for its syntactic properties. Dik (1968: 25)
defines coordination as a 'construction consisting of two or more members
which are equivalent as to grammatical function, and bound together at the
same level of structural hierarchy by means of a linking device'. Now, the
two members of this particular coordination are definitely not equivalent as
to grammatical, but only as to rhetorical function: they are both warrants for
the question which follows. As a matter of fact, the utterance is syntactically
speaking quite unacceptable. The second part of the conjunction is not a
complete sentence, but neither does it fulfil an identifiable role as a possible
constituent of the first utterance. Mittwoch (1976: 23) suggests that the
possibility of conjoining utterances with and is subject, not to syntactic
constraints, but to conditions of compatibility of illocutionary force. In the
example under consideration, however, it is questionable whether precise
illocutionary force can be attributed to the isolated bit of discourse following
puis. The label 'warrant' for the following question seems to belong on a
rhetorical level, distinct from the level of illocutionary force. The fact that
the meaning of the entire stretch of discourse is perfectly clear and that the
syntactic incoherence seems to go quite unnoticed by all interactants is an
indication that discourse slot (or 'sequential placement', in conversation-
analytical terms) can override syntactic and illocutionary factors in com-
prehension (cf. Schegloff and Sacks, 1974: 254).
The following example has a three-part structure, which may make it seem
like a counter-example to my claim that puis connects in a binary fashion:

8
Wherever examples from my corpora are commented on, pronouns refer to the actual sex of
the interlocutors. Elsewhere, 'she' is used to refer to speakers, and 'he' to hearers.

42
 Puis in spoken French

(22) . . . dans les raisons de cet echec il y a evidemment la position prise par la
Grande-Bretagne mais enfin on peut dire que ca fait des annees que c,a dure, il y a
effectivement comme le disait Amouroux tout a l'heure le fait, que entre le
Chancelier allemand et le President de la Republique franchise il n'y a plus les
memes rapports qu'il y avait autrefois, entre le chef d'etat allemand et le chef
d'etat francais, puis y a aussi probablement euh,, une faiblesse,, franchise,, une
faiblesse dans la negotiation (VS2: 5)
This is only apparently so, however. Of the three reasons cited for the
failure of the Athens summit of 1983 (referred to by cet echec), the first one is
actually rejected by the speaker as ultimately irrelevant, and only two are
retained as truly explanatory.
In all the following extracts, we find puis introducing several utterances in
a row, which, if my analysis of the marker is correct, is an indication that the
structure of the discourse is hierarchical:
(23) . . . moije suis absolument d'accord avecJean-Didier c'est vraiment la reussite
de ce livre c'est que on voit des politiciens de gauche qui vous disent ah c'est
extraordinaire c'est un vrai portait sincere de Mitterrand a. puis elle a et elle a pas
parle de la vie privee de Mitterrand elle a pas bon et puis a droite on nous dit ah
c'est extraordinaire qu'est-ce qu'elle a foutu a la gueule de Mitterrand (h) et c'est
le meme livre (MP: 5)

qualities of the biography in question

according to the political left according to the political right

sincere portrait no mention of private life

Figure 1

Schematically, we may represent this fragment as a tree structure such as

Figure 1. That is, in order to be able to evaluate the quality of this new
biography of President Mitterrand, the speaker is suggesting, on the first
level of binary structure, that it is relevant to know, on the one hand, the
reaction of the political left towards the book, and on the other hand, the
contrasting reactions of the political right. On the second level, the speaker
wishes to point out that there are two independent aspects of the book which
tend to be appreciated by left-wing readers.

43
 M.-B. Hansen

(24)' Ti A: . . . ce serait un peu le genre (h) tu te rappelles quand on a ete prendre le

livre, Isabelle
T2 B: quel livre
T3 A: euh:: on est rentrees a la fac etpuis y avait une: y avait des livres sur les
etageres
T4 B: oui
T5 A: tu te souviens
T6 B: oui
T7 A: etpuis le: gars il je lui ai dit mais je vous l'acheterai demain, et il a dit mais
non moije vous fais pas confiance, tu te souviens (CT: 11)
Turns 2-6 in this example form a side-sequence (cf. Jefferson, 1972),
whose main purpose is to clarify what is being talked about, and which is
therefore functionally subordinated to the narrative beginning in turns 1
and 7. We can represent this as in Figure 2 (loosely following the so-called
Genevan model of discourse analysis, cf. Moeschler, 1985; Roulet et al.,
1987).

T1(A)

T2(B)
T3(A)
T4(B)

T5(A)
T6(B)

T7(A)

Figure 2

In both the subordinate and the superordinate structure, the bits of

discourse preceding puis provide the framework for interpreting what
follows. In relevance-theoretical terms, utterances of this type achieve
relevance by making accessible a set of contextual assumptions necessary for
the interpretation of the primary message.
In example (25), we have an unusually complex structure (note that the
fourth and sixth instance of puis here properly belong in section 3.3 of this
paper, as they introduce constituents rather than whole utterances):
(25) T i A: dans le musee deja deja elle nous a donne des dates
T2 B: oui
T3 A: alors deja c'etait complique mais elle nous a dit bon ben maintenant
T4 B: oui
9
'Turns' in this and the following example have been numbered for ease of reference. This is a
practical expedient only, and should not be taken to embody any theoretical claims as to

44
 Puis in spoken French

T5 A: apres on va revoir tout qa au fur a mesure, puis apres l'apres-midi ils nous
ont emmenes a Saqqarah [. . .]
T6 A: et elle bon eux ils disaient le plateau de Guiseh, puis alors bon done on a
fait cette visite, et puis alors c,a e'etait le premier jour je crois, et le lendemain
matin on a du aller a Memphis
T 7 ® : oui
T8 A: etpuii a Saqqarah,, oui, et l'apres-midi on a visite Le Caire mais la partie
musulmane & parce que bon euh &&
T9 B: & oui d'accord &&
T i o A: y avait tellement de mosquees puis e'est interessant done on a fait cette
partie-la puis les souks, evidemment,, et puis apres on a quitte Le Caire pour
aller, a Thebes . . . (VE: 17, 20)

Disregarding a rather long digression about the proper pronunciation of

Egyptian place names (marked in turn 5-6 by . . . et elle bon eux ils disaient le
plateau de Guiseh), we can represent the conceptual structure of the passage as
in Figure 3.

two days in Cairo area

museum Guiza morning afternoon

Memphis Saqqarah

city of Cairo Thebes

bazar

mosques interesting
(for other reasons)
Figure 3

Turn 6 seems to pose a problem for the proposed hierarchization, if we

consider the sequencepim alors bon done on a fait cette visite, etpuis alors ca e'etait
le premier jourje crois, et le lendemain matin on a du aller a Memphis. In order for
the analysis to work, the puis of the second utterance in this sequence should
mark a shift from the first to the second day of the visit being talked about. I
would argue that this is, in fact, what it does mark, since the (a e'etait le
premier jour je crois is spoken more slowly, with distinctly lower pitch as
compared to the rest of the passage, and is followed by a brief pause after

whether 'backchannel signals', such as B's oui in T4 here actually do constitute real turns at
talk.

45
 M.-B. Hansen

which there is a rise in pitch and intensity, all suggesting that it should be
interpreted as parenthetical (cf. Wunderli, 1982).
The following might be thought a counter-example to my analysis, in
that it appears to involve a reformulation, which may not only be thought
irrelevant (for an account of the relevance of reformulations, see however,
Blakemore, 1993, 1994), but which would seem to preclude a hierarchical
understanding of the passage:
(26) A: mais sinon est-ce que t'es timide qu&and tu connais pas les gens
B: & moi
B: ouais
A: moi aus
B: pourquoi
A: parce que moi aussi
B: pourtant t'as pas ete trop timide avec Nadia
A: ben parce que t'etais a cote hein sinon mais c'est different avec Nadia
B: nonj'ai prefere
A: parce que je la connaissais avant de la voir si tu veux
B: ah d'accord, non parce que laj'ai prefere Isabelle c'etait mieuxje trouve,, tu
comprends
A: c'etait mieux comment ca
B: c'etait mieux t'etais a l'aise et tout et puis elle t'a bien aimee, et puis en plus
Nadia elle t'a pas du tout mis mal a l'aise
A: mais elle MET les gens mal a l'aise quand elle les aime pas (CT: 7-8)
It is clear from the context and from the speaker's choice of words that
the last utterance following puis is more than just a reformulation,
however. First, we have the adverbial en plus following the second occur-
rence of puis, suggesting that to the speaker the upcoming utterance is not
simply another way of saying the same thing, but that new information is
being added. Secondly, the subject of the utterance is dislocated to the left,
where it is represented by a lexical NP, even though it does not represent a
new discourse entity, but is in fact co-referential with the pronominal
subject of the preceding utterance. This indicates that marked topic shift is
taking place.10 According to Barnes (1985: 65), the most frequent type of
left-detachment of lexical NPs is where 'the referent has just been men-
tioned but is not yet established as a topic of the discourse'. In the passage
quoted here, the discourse topic is A's claim to be shy, and her meeting
with Nadia is evoked as a possible counter-example. So, although Nadia is
the subject of the utterance following the first puis, she is still not a topic in
her own right. Once she has been established as such, however, a lengthy
discussion of her personality and behaviour ensues, whereas the original
shyness-topic is not referred to again.11 In other words, subsequent occur-
10
Cf. also Fox's (1987: 69) suggestion that in English conversation, the use of a full NP to refer
to an already established discourse entity may be a way of demarcating a new structural unit.
11
The passage as a whole is an example of what conversation analysts call 'stepwise transition
of topic' (cf. Schiffrin 1994: 261).

46
 Puis in spoken French

reasons why the encounter

went well

reasons linked reason linked to Nadia

to A

A was at ease Nadia liked A

Figure 4

rences of puis indicate a hierarchical structure in Figure 4 as in the previous

examples.

3.2. Puis introduces a turn at talk

In this group of examples, the speaker is adding to information expressed in a
previous turn by another speaker.
(27) A: . . . y a surement un livre que vous avez lu tous les trois c'est le livre que
Pierre Assouline a consacre a Gallimard Gaston & Gallimard &&
B: & Gaston Gallimard &&
A: oui Gaston oui la aussi faut preciser le prenom parce qu'ils sont plusieurs
B: oui et puis en plus on l'appelle Gaston maintenant j'ai remarque que depuis
que le livre a paru tout le monde dit vous avez vu la biographie de Gaston
comme si c'etait
C: un pote (MP: 17)
The fact that we are dealing with two independent utterances, considered
by their speakers to be independently relevant to the same 'common
integrator' is hardly debatable. What is interesting about turn-initial puis is,
on the one hand, that the marker may be used in sequences which are, in the
terminology of the Geneva School 'dialogal, but monologic', and on the
other hand, that puis in this environment may be used as part of a
manipulative rhetorical strategy.
Roulet et al. (1987: 6off.) make a primary (structural) distinction between
monologal and dialogal discourse, based on whether the discourse is
produced by one or two speakers. To this, they add a secondary (functional)
distinction between monologic and dialogic discourse, i.e. whether the
discourse structure more resembles that of a 'move' or that of an exchange.
They moreover claim that all of the four logically possible combinations of
these parameters may be found in actual discourse. The combinations
'monologal/monologic' and 'dialogal/dialogic' are fairly straightforward
and self-explanatory. An example of'monologal/dialogic' discourse would
be an editorial or a lecture, where the writer/speaker presented arguments
and counter-arguments, and/or where she asked questions of herself, in

47
 M.-B. Hansen

other words a structure which displayed actions and subsequent reactions.

An example of 'dialogal/monologic' discourse would be an exchange where
the second speaker was not so much reacting to the discourse move of the
first, but rather helping the first speaker to construct her move, e.g. by
attempting to clarify what was being said, or by adding to an argument
being presented. Such a thing is not uncommon in connection with the
turn-initial use of puts:
(28) A: . . . elle parle aussi beaucoup de sa femme qui aurait contribue
B: oui
A: enfin Daniele Mitterrand & qui aurait contribue &&
B: & a le faire virer a gauche &&
A: § a le faire virer a gauche §§
B: § oui §§
C: § elle etait a l'origine oui oui §§
A: ce qui est aussi une des revelations (h) elle appartenant a un milieu beaucoup
plus franc-& maqon &&
B: & et puis un milieu d'instituteurs && (MP: 9)
(29) A: . . . et ils ont des guides, vraiment on avait une Egyptienne
B: mm
A: mais vraiment specialisee hein
B: mm
A: elle avait fait des etudes d'archeologie
B: je pense qu'ils peuvent quand meme s'offrir des guides & interessants hein
&&
A: & ouais et puis && qui parlai(en)t un franqais tres bon
B: oui
A: en plus parce que quand meme c'est important hein (VE: 16)
In both examples, the utterance introduced by puis is a constituent of the
previous utterance, and does not form a complete sentence by itself.
Example (29) may say something interesting about different constraints on
interpretability in spontaneous speech as opposed to writing, since the
conjunction here is semantically anomalous, but nevertheless (like (21)
above) fully understandable and not reacted to by the interlocutors. The
anomaly I am alluding to lies in the fact that des guides in the previous turn is
fairly clearly non-referential, while the relative clause following puis requires
a specific, referential antecedent in order for the use of the imperfect verb
form to make sense.12
In (28) and (29), then, the second speaker is collaborating with the first

12
Interestingly, in the original transcription, made by a native French speaker, the verb
parlai(en)t is in the singular. One cannot actually hear the difference, of course, but
syntactically only the plural could be correct. It seems that the transcriber has simply
overlooked the anomaly here, and has interpreted the antecedent of the relative clause as
being the particular guide mentioned in turn 1, which is no doubt what the speaker in fact
intended.

48
 Puis in spokeh French

speaker to construct a single discourse move. Puis is not always used in an

unambiguously altruistic fashion, however:

(30) A: parce que qu'est-ce qu'il reste de Thebes, de Thebes & la ville elle-meme y a
rien, parce que c'est &&
B: & de:, rien non il ne reste que la partie && des: religieuses § quoi §§
A: § oui les §§ absolument
B: oui oui
A: parce que bon l'architecture civile pour eux c,a n'avait strictement aucune
importance
B: puis c'etait construit en pierre en briques seches done c'est detruit hein (VE:
22-23)
(31) A: elle explique que Mitterrand etait pas de gauche originellement et qu'il Test
devenu justement grace a des rencontres comme celle de sa femme
B: oui etpuis enfin politiquement y a pas de mal a etre plus a gauche que Mollet
je veux dire qui a represente toute la: le socialisme sous la Quatrieme et les debuts
de la Cinquieme (h) done je veux dire c'est a celui qui sera moins a gauche que
l'autre pour devenir chef de la gauche (MP: 9-10)

Greenbaum (1969: 36) semantically defines additive conjuncts as 'either [i]

conveying] an incremental effect, suggesting a reinforcement of what has
been said before, or [ii] indicating] a similarity with what has been said
before'. However, the utterances marked by puis in (30) and (31) are actually
being used to undermine what the previous speaker has said. In (30), speaker
B's explanation of the facts ultimately implies that A's explanation is
irrelevant (in the non-technical sense), and in (31), it is the presuppositions of
A's utterance that are covertly challenged. Puis may then be used as a
face-saving device (cf. Brown and Levinson, 1987), allowing a speaker to
contradict her interlocutor without seeming to do so, and hence preventing
an overt confrontation. This is the 'manipulative rhetorical strategy' men-
tioned above.

3.3. Puis connects constituents of a single utterance

According to Nelke (1994), connectives 'establish a relation between an

utterance, on the one hand, and either one or more other utterances or an
extralinguistic entity, on the other' (1994: 123; my translation). Thus,
'conjunctions which operate at a level below the sentence are not connec-
tives' (1994: 124; my translation). The only exception to this is if the second
conjunct can be construed as elliptical. The distinction as stated here is, in my
view, not entirely justified, since it seems to imply that discourse connectives
which, unlike puis, are clearly not conjunctions, should be unable to function
below the level of the sentence. This is contradicted by my own previous
work on bon, ben, and eh bien (cf. Hansen, forthcoming a and b). Let us
nevertheless pursue the question for a moment.
While an elliptical interpretation is possible for many examples in this

49
 M.-B. Hansen

group, others resist an analysis of this kind. This again supports the
hypothesis that (et) puis in spoken standard French may be acquiring the status
of a true conjunction, as is apparently already the case in Quebecois (cf.
Laurandeau, 1983). The number of examples in my corpora for which only a
non-elliptical interpretation is possible is, however, not large enough to
warrant the conclusion that conjunctive puis is fully grammaticalized, the
more so since at least some instances may be explained by other factors.
As regards the semantic properties o(puis, the bit of discourse following
puis in the non-elliptical examples cannot easily be understood as constituting
a separate act of utterance. It can, however, still be considered to have con-
textual effects of its own and to be the second of two and only two elements.
The following examples show a structure which may plausibly be
understood as elliptical:
(32) A: . . . par exemple y avait euh comment elle s'appelait Myriam, qui jouait
dedans qui jouait son role
B: mm mm
A: tu vois de Myriam, Collomb et puis un autre petit un tout petit Marseillais
qui faisait craquer toutes les petites nanas je sais pas si tu te rappelles (CV: 9)
(33) . . . ils etaient l'un et l'autre des prisonniers de guerre, De Gaulle a ete prisonnier
32 mois en 1914-18 et a essaye de s'echapper et Mitterrand a ete prisonnier plus
d'un an douze ou dix-huit mois et lui il s'est echappe et De Gaulle trouvait tres
bien qu'on s'echappe en 14-18 mais tout a fait scandaleux qu'on s'echappe en
39-40 ca prouve qu'on avait ete prisonnier et done la y a et comme il a commence
sa carriere comme representant et ca elle le montre tres bien Catherine Ney (h)
des evades car e'est comme ca qu'il a commence il est arrive en disant voila je
represente tous les gens (h) qui se sont evades et puis tous ceux qui ont et£
prisonniers (MP: 7-8)
(34) A: . . . oui e'est des & bas-reliefs &&
B: & un bas-relief &&
A: un bas- § relief §§
B: § oui §§ e'est possible hein
A: et c,a represente e'est une bande dessinee, enfin & nous on appellerait c,a une
bande dessinee &&
B: & oui qa fait une bande dessinee ouais &&
A: et e'est une dispute de bateliers sur le Nil § alors §§
B: § ah oui §§
A: t'as l'equivalent done t'as la succession des scenes, et puis alors sortant de la
bouche des belligerants, euh ce qui correspond aux bulks & d'aujourd'hui
B: & e'est vrai (VE: 51-52)

In all of these, expansion of the constituent following puis is possible:

(32') A: . . . par exemple y avait euh comment elle s'appelait Myriam, qui jouait
dedans qui jouait son role
B: mm mm
A: tu vois de Myriam, Collomb et puis y avait un autre petit un tout petit
Marseillais . . .

50
 Puis in spoken French

(33') . . . c'est comme ca qu'il a commence il est arrive en disant voila je represente
tous les gens (h) qui se sont evades et puis je represente tous ceux qui ont ete
prisonniers
(34') . . . t'as l'equivalent done t'as la succession des scenes, et puis alors sortant de
la bouche des belligerants, euh t'as ce qui correspond aux bulles & d'au-
jourd'hui
In (35), however, ellipsis is highly unlikely, since (35') seems to have a
different meaning:
(35) A: alors pour eux les Coptes c'est en meme temps que Isis Osiris
B: au oui & ben oui &&
A: & ils ont beau && il ont beaucoup de mal (h) alors mais les Chretiens ils
vivaient comment a l'epoque
B: oui il ne § ils n'existaient §§ pas aussi
A: § mais c'est §§
A: alors c'est difficile de leur faire comprendre que les:
B: ah oui
A: les Coptes c'est tres proche de & nous par rapport a la religion &&
B: & nous, oui, bien sur par rapport a la &&
A: de l'Egypte an- § cienne §§
B: § cienne ouais §§
A: mais quand tu leur dis que c,a a quand meme pres de deux mille ans, et puis
que c'est tres proche
B: de nous
A: de nous, euh: c,a les fait rever un petit peu (VE: 64)
(35') A: mais quand tu leur dis que c,a a quand meme pres de deux mille ans (a les
fait river un petit peu, et puis quand tu leur dis que c'est tres proche
B: de nous
A: de nous, euh: c,a les fait rever un petit peu
Finally, in (36) and (37), expansion seems to be out of the question:
(36) A: au oui entre ce qu'on enseignait y a vingt ans,
B: ah bon
A: et puis ce qu'on enseigne aujourd'hui y a des differences parce que y a des
acquis, nouveaux, et puis y a des choses qui se sont revelees fausses
B: ah bon
A: oui
B: ah ben je sais pas ca parce que bon nous on a les notions qu'on a entendues
cet ete, c'est tout . . . (VE: 12)
(37) . . . done on en a vu un petit morceau par avion, puis on est alles jusqu'a Abou
Simbel parce que y a les deux temples-la: euh:, de: comment Ramses euh:,
Ramses II, oui, etpuis sa femme qui sont cote a cote quoi (VE: 31)
Now, in (35), the fact that we are dealing with an example of indirect
speech goes some way towards providing an account for the use of puis,
since, in the corresponding direct speech, the two conjuncts would be
highly likely to constitute separate utterances, for instance as follows:

51
 M.-B. Hansen

(38) La religion copte, $a a quand meme pres de deux mille ans; mais c'est tres proche
de nous par rapport a la religion de l'Egypte ancienne

Moreover, the paradox expressed in (35) would, if not disappear, then at

least be weakened if the first conjunct were not supposed to give rise to its
own set of contextual effects, which would then have to be reconciled with
those of the second conjunct.
In (36), it seems plausible that the first conjunct is supposed to give rise to a
whole range of assumptions about how Ancient Egyptian history was taught
twenty years ago, assumptions which may subsequently be contrasted with
the way the subject is taught now. Note that although the preposition entre in
turn 1 shows both conjuncts to have been pre-planned, the speaker does
mark a brief (rhetorical?) pause before the second conjunct, as if to give the
first more weight. It might also be the case that B's interruption in turn 2
(facilitated by the aforementioned pause) turns what was originally planned
as one utterance into two separate ones, and that A then feels the need to
specify (redundantly, since she has already marked the structure of her
message with entre) that there still is a second part to be added.
In (37), the insertion of puts may be explained by the ambiguity of
conjunction with et alone: are there two temples, each of which is consecra-
ted to Rameses and to his wife, or is one temple consecrated to Rameses, and
the other to his wife? The latter is, in fact, the case, and the use of puis here
then makes perfect sense, if we assume that this marker instructs the hearer
to understand the conjuncts as separately relevant. There may then be said to
be some sort of ellipsis or fusion (cf. note 6 above) at play here after all
(although this does not suffice to give each conjunct the status of an
independent act of utterance), since the utterance might be paraphrased as:

(39) Y a les deux temples-la, y a le temple de Ramses II, et puis y a le temple de sa

femme, qui sont cote a cote

The utterance, then, shows some similarity to the example adduced in

note 6 above:
(40) Jean et puis Marie sont maries

which, contrary to the corresponding sentence without puis, is not ambigu-

ous, inasmuch as it can only mean that Jean and Marie are married, but not to
one another.
Thus, even when puis is used to connect constituents rather than whole
utterances, these constituents retain at least some properties of whole
utterances. Nelke's (1994) intuition about the nature of connectives may
then perhaps be salvaged by appealing to the notion of'semi-acts' (Rubattel,
1987), 'clauses' (Berrendonner, 1990), or 'discourse acts' (Roulet, 1991;
Kroon, 1994). These are minimal units of discourse which do not constitute
complete utterances, and which therefore have no independent illocutionary

52
 Puis in spoken French

force, but which nevertheless fulfil an interactive, or rhetorical, function, for

instance by supporting, preparing, arguing against, or elaborating on the
main point of the move in which they appear. Examples cited in the
literature are left- and right-dislocated NPs, certain subordinate clauses (e.g.
concessive clauses, or non-restrictive relative clauses), and certain preposi-
tional phrases which fulfil a discourse function similar to that of a subord-
inate clause (e.g. malgre lesprevisions de la meteo = bien que la meteo ait annonce
du bon/mauuais temps). What seems to be the case, then, is that although we
are probably forced to conclude that puis may currently be moving from the
status of a conjunct towards that of a true conjunction, it must, at its present
stage of evolution, connect at least discourse acts, if not whole utterances.13

4. CONCLUSION

To sum up the preceding discussion, I have argued that the coded content of
conversational puis should be seen in procedural terms, i.e. as consisting in a
set of instructions from the speaker to the hearer, directing him on the one
hand to search for two and only two elements to be connected on the same
level of the discourse, and on the other hand to understand these elements as
being individually relevant to some 'common integrator'.
I have presented evidence that puis in contemporary spoken French is no
longer to be analysed as a time adverb, and have argued that it has, in fact,
become grammaticalized as an additive conjunct, with the important proviso
that such an analysis be based on semantic, rather than the traditional
syntactic criteria, since the syntactic behaviour of this particle is unorthodox.
I have, moreover, hypothesized that puis may be undergoing further
grammaticalization tending towards its becoming a true conjunction, and
that it may not therefore be possible to place it squarely in any one particular
word class. If it is nevertheless possible to avoid an analysis in terms of
homonymy, it is because the basic semantic instructions associated with this
marker seem to remain the same in its different syntactic uses, and because,
even when it functions below the level of the sentence, the units connected
can be considered as acts in themselves, rather than mere constituents of acts.
13
An anonymous reviewer suggests that (40) above might more appropriately be transcribed as
follows:yean, et puis Marie, soul maries; and that it is the syntax, rather than the occurrence of
puis, which is responsible for the non-ambiguity of this sentence. Now, if the commas are to
be understood as indicating brief pauses in the speech stream, I disagree with the proposed
transcription. If, on the other hand, they are taken to indicate that etpuis Marie is somehow on
a different level of structure, this seems to be entirely in line with my proposal that units
connected by puis be understood as separate discourse acts. The same reviewer also suggests
that Jean, et Marie, sont maries (the commas presumably intended to indicate pauses in the
speech stream) would similarly be unambiguous. 1 am not convinced that this is necessarily
the case, but even so, it merely shows, as has often been noted, that discourse markers are
usually optional, in the sense that they can only reflect (and thereby guide the hearer towards)
an already possible interpretation, which may also be indicated by other means: then in
English If. . . then . . . constructions is a clear example of such optional marking.

S3
 M.-B. Hansen

Finally, I would like to emphasize that the analysis of conversational puis

presented here is not claimed to be necessarily generalizable to written
French also. One would hope that it is, but written standard French being
far more conservative than the spoken variety, it may be expected that a
marker like puis will have retained more of its original temporal meaning
here.14

Author's address:
Institut d'Etudes Romanes,
Faculte des Lettres et Sciences Humaines,
Universite de Copenhague,
Njalsgade 80,
DK-2300 Copenhague S,
Denmark

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