Anaphoric Adverbs of Manner in French: Discursive Interpretation

Anaphora plays a key role in text cohesion process, as for micro- and macro-text levels. Thus, interpretation of anaphoric units is compulsory for the adequate comprehension of discourse as a whole. Pronouns are generally considered as essential anaphoric units which refer to nouns naming persons, objects and phenomena, although anaphoric units can be found in all categorematic parts of speech, particularly in adverbs. Studying of adverbial anaphora in French is a rather difficult matter, first because of heterogeneity of elements composing this part of speech. This article presents detailed analysis of anaphoric adverbs referring to the manner of action verbalized in the same framework of the communicative situation. Anaphoric adverbs of manner have been studied in a concrete discourse space, and it allowed revealing 2 types of relation between anaphoric adverb and its antecedent identity and difference, which facilitates their comprehension and discursive interpretation.