The French construction nouveau + past participle revisited: Arguments in favour of a prefixoid analysis of nouveau

Abstract

The article focuses on the French construction nouveau + past participle (e.g. nouveau-né ‘newborn baby’) in which nouveau is traditionally assigned an adverbial value. However, it will be claimed that an alternative analysis, classifying nouveau as an adjective grammaticalising into a prefix – a ‘prefixoid’ – provides a more accurate account of the construction. The article proposes a set of four parameters applying to the grammaticalisation of French prefixoids (resemanticisation, decategorialisation, paradigmaticisation and productivity). These parameters will be applied to the construction nouveau + past participle and it will be shown that they conflict with the traditional adverbial analysis and plead in favour of a prefixoid analysis of nouveau .