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Chapter 10. A just amazing marker in French: “Juste”

“Juste excellentissime!” “Juste super heureux!” “Juste irréel!” “Juste pas possible!”
  • Danh Thành Do-Hurinville
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Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface
This chapter is in the book Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface

Abstract

Juste belongs to those words (justement, limite, grave, côté, question, niveau…) that today one cannot do without, both in everyday conversation and in the media! After pointing out that juste, from the Latin justus, is a transcategorial unit par excellence, as it can be an adjective, a noun, or an adverb, this article deals with its recent adverbial use, identified orally in the early 2000s, officially registered in Le Petit Robert de la Langue Française in 2014. I propose that juste is a metalinguistic marker which creates double modalisation: it has scope both over an element X which can be an extreme (non-gradable) adjective, a non-gradable noun phrase (verb phrase or prepositional phrase), and over the utterance act. This recent adverbial use of juste is analysed in the following configurations: (1) juste and extreme adjectives (extreme adjectives formed by the suffix -issime, and extreme adjectives formed by the private prefix -in); (2) juste and non-gradable sequences [pas + gradable adjectives]; (3) juste and two non-gradable sequences ([très / trop + gradable adjectives]; [super / hyper / ultra / supra / mega / giga + gradable adjectives]); (4) juste and non-gradable [noun / verb / prepositional] phrases.

Abstract

Juste belongs to those words (justement, limite, grave, côté, question, niveau…) that today one cannot do without, both in everyday conversation and in the media! After pointing out that juste, from the Latin justus, is a transcategorial unit par excellence, as it can be an adjective, a noun, or an adverb, this article deals with its recent adverbial use, identified orally in the early 2000s, officially registered in Le Petit Robert de la Langue Française in 2014. I propose that juste is a metalinguistic marker which creates double modalisation: it has scope both over an element X which can be an extreme (non-gradable) adjective, a non-gradable noun phrase (verb phrase or prepositional phrase), and over the utterance act. This recent adverbial use of juste is analysed in the following configurations: (1) juste and extreme adjectives (extreme adjectives formed by the suffix -issime, and extreme adjectives formed by the private prefix -in); (2) juste and non-gradable sequences [pas + gradable adjectives]; (3) juste and two non-gradable sequences ([très / trop + gradable adjectives]; [super / hyper / ultra / supra / mega / giga + gradable adjectives]); (4) juste and non-gradable [noun / verb / prepositional] phrases.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Grammar, discourse, and the grammar-discourse interface 1
  4. Part I. Discourse markers
  5. Chapter 1. On the rise of discourse markers 23
  6. Chapter 2. On the pragmatic development of modal particles in Navarrese-Lapurdian Basque 57
  7. Chapter 3. On divergent paths and functions of ‘background’-based discourse markers in Korean 77
  8. Chapter 4. Reanalysis and the emergence of adverbial connectors in the history of Japanese 101
  9. Part II. Discourse markers
  10. Chapter 5. The meaning and functions of French je pense (que) 127
  11. Chapter 6. Discourse markers and brain lateralization 157
  12. Chapter 7. Vietnamese expletive between grammatical subject and subjectivity marker 195
  13. Chapter 8. The final particle like in Northern English 229
  14. Chapter 9. On pragma-semantics of expressives 245
  15. Part III. Discourse-related grammatical phenomena
  16. Chapter 10. A just amazing marker in French: “Juste” 275
  17. Chapter 11. On how the distinction between reciprocal and collective verbs affects (anti-)control 299
  18. Chapter 12. The rise of cause/reason adverbial markers in Yaqui (Uto-Aztecan) 313
  19. Index 353
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.219.10doh

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Grammar, discourse, and the grammar-discourse interface 1
  4. Part I. Discourse markers
  5. Chapter 1. On the rise of discourse markers 23
  6. Chapter 2. On the pragmatic development of modal particles in Navarrese-Lapurdian Basque 57
  7. Chapter 3. On divergent paths and functions of ‘background’-based discourse markers in Korean 77
  8. Chapter 4. Reanalysis and the emergence of adverbial connectors in the history of Japanese 101
  9. Part II. Discourse markers
  10. Chapter 5. The meaning and functions of French je pense (que) 127
  11. Chapter 6. Discourse markers and brain lateralization 157
  12. Chapter 7. Vietnamese expletive between grammatical subject and subjectivity marker 195
  13. Chapter 8. The final particle like in Northern English 229
  14. Chapter 9. On pragma-semantics of expressives 245
  15. Part III. Discourse-related grammatical phenomena
  16. Chapter 10. A just amazing marker in French: “Juste” 275
  17. Chapter 11. On how the distinction between reciprocal and collective verbs affects (anti-)control 299
  18. Chapter 12. The rise of cause/reason adverbial markers in Yaqui (Uto-Aztecan) 313
  19. Index 353
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