Contribution à l'étude de l'évolution de certainement

Abstract

The aim of this paper to describe the various uses of the adverb certainement 'certainly', based on 16th-century French texts. Having provided a short summary of the treatment of certainement in contemporary grammars, in the first – theoretical – part I will argue that the development of adverbs is a part of grammaticalisation processes. Based on the examples of Frantext, I will show that certainement was present in 16th-century French both as an adverb of manner and as a sentential adverbial.