Non-discrete reference, discourse construction, and the French neuter clitic pronouns

This article examines a range of predicate- and proposition-anaphoric phenomena in French, chiefly involving the ‘neuter’ clitic pronouns le, y and en , from the point of view of their discourse motivation. One aim is to characterise the relatively little-studied phenomenon of ‘non-discrete’ reference in discourse. Another is to determine the extent to which the speaker\ writer can use an anaphoric expression in such a way as to ‘release’ the predicative element from within a co-occuring functionally non -perdicative expression or sequence, or to asssign a ‘third order’ entity status as a mutually validated fact to what in context has been interpreted as a predication. Such uses constitute what I am calling the ‘discourse-operator’ function which anaphoric expressions may fulfil in the appropriate discourse context. The speacker\writer's ability to use predicate anaphors in this kind of the way is constrained by the meta-discursive criterion of coherence.