Le verbe "dire" en tant que marqueur d’approximation

Abstract

The objective of the article is to examine the approximative and adjustive uses of the verb dire, which is mostly regarded as an assertive and eventful verb; hence non-approximative. Meanwhile, in many expressions, in an impersonal use, in negation when the subjunctive mode is used, in the conditional forms, its evidence value is weakened and the verb dire can express approximation. The study is situated in light of the enunciation theory, notably it refers to a notion of modalisation. The corpus was established on the basis of dictionaries, which are representative for normative uses, but we will refer as well to press texts, particularly interviews, where the verb say is frequently used as a marker of the position of the speaker.