Pour une nouvelle approche de l'imparfait: l'imparfait, un temps anaphorique méronomique

This paper gives first a detailed criticism of classical approaches to the imparfait (more precisely the aspectual and coreferential theses) and second a radically new description of this verbal tense. The solution stipulates an anaphoric relation of the kind part-whole between the antecedent-situation of the past and the situation described by the imparfait. This proposal allows to put together the questions of temporal reference and « associative » anaphora.