This conference is dedicated to the memory of two major figures of French and English linguistics: Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier.

Their works have been the object of several numbers of scientific journals: Linx, n° 34-35 (1996, D. Leeman & S. Meleuc dir.); Langue Française n° 153 (2007, J. François, D. Le Pesant & D. Leeman dir.); Langages n° 179-180 (2010, D. Leeman & P. Sabatier dir.). Today, we have taken the initiative to organize a scientific conference centered around their works. The conference will be held in Aix-en-Provence, the town where they lived from 1993 until their death.

The fact that this conference should be centered upon both Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier goes without saying, for it is together they published so many of their works. In the domain of French linguistics alone they published 7 articles and 17 books. Not to mention that in the last years of their lives, Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier worked on their Dictionnaire Electronique des Mots which unfortunately, due to their passing, has remained an incomplete synthesis of their electronic dictionaries.

Keynote speakers

Michel Arrivé (Université Paris Nanterre et CNRS-MoDyCo)

Danielle Leeman (Université Paris Nanterre et CNRS-ICAR).

Throughout the years 1960-2000, the influence of Jean Dubois and Francoise Dubois-Charlier on French and English linguistics is incontestable.

This is certainly due both to their talent and the far-reaching extent of their work–17 books and 7 articles on French linguistics that they published as a couple, and 16 other works and 46 articles on French linguistics published by Jean Dubois alone or in collaboration with others. Françoise Dubois-Charlier published on French but also on English linguistics, either alone or in collaboration with others: around twenty works (grammar textbooks, dictionaries, and various other textbooks of all levels) as well as articles on English linguistics alone (and particularly English syntax). Her works additionally include general linguistics studies and an introduction to linguistics (in collaboration), which was translated into several languages. Last but not least the interest of the couple in neurolinguistics led to the publication of one book and 25 articles for Jean Dubois, and one book and 5 articles for Francoise Dubois-Charlier.

The fact that Jean Dubois (along with his brother, Claude Dubois) played a leading role in the publication of the dictionaries and journals edited by the Editions Larousse, was obviouslya key to his impact on the intellectual life of the 1960s. With the launching of Langages and Langue Francaise respectively in 1966 and 1968, Jean Dubois made every effort to ensure that (amongst other vectors) American linguistics, notably in the fields of distributional and transformational linguistics, be introduced in France. Françoise Dubois-Charlier for her part also contributed to the development of generative and transformational grammar, then of generative semantics and case grammar, through several works on the English and the French language, as well as through her translations of books and articles on these topics. Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier were also the publication managers for Larousse’s Teaching and Pedagogy series.

Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier were part of the intellectual heydays of the 60s for social sciences in general and linguistics in particular, and the effervescence that characterized that era played no small part in facilitating their task as linguists (see Chevalier, J.-C. & P. Encrevé.2006. Combats pour la linguistique, de Martinet à Kristeva (ENS Editions)). It was an era characterized by:

• the explosion of the student population which led to the massive creation of university positions

• the linguistic turn towards structuralism, which (with the 1967 Fouchet Reform bill) would lead the French university to embark on an all-new branch of study – Linguistics

• Structuralism’s slogan pertaining to the beacon role it would ostensibly play in linguistics in regards to the study of the humanities and the social sciences

• the spirit of 1968 which would make a clean sweep of (amongst other things) the pervading dominance of Philology (the historical/ideological commentary of classical texts and analysis of style) at the Sorbonne and would enable the hailing in of the “non agrégés” – R. Barthes, A.-J. Greimas and B. Quemada

• the new-found notoriety of Saussure and E. Benveniste

• France catching wind of the newly born American distributional and transformational grammars ( Harris and Chomsky)

The grammars of Jean Dubois and Francoise Dubois Charlier were inspired by Z. Harris, as the successor of Bloomfield and are also reminiscent of Hjelmslev, principally regarding the relationship between syntax and meaning. Jean Dubois was also greatly influenced by Saussure and the Prague School, and wrote several articles on generative grammar. No mention is made at the time of Maurice Gross, who published Méthodes en syntaxe only in 1975.

Grammaire structurale du français : Nom et pronom, Dubois J. (1965); Grammaire structurale du français : Le verbe, Dubois J. (1967); Grammaire structurale du français : La phrase et les transformations, Dubois J. (1969); Eléments de linguistique française, Dubois J. & F. Dubois-Charlier (1970); La nouvelle grammaire du français, Dubois J. & R. Lagane (1973); Grammaire de base, Dubois J. (1976); Eléments de linguistique anglaise : syntaxe, Dubois-Charlier F. (1970); Eléments de linguistique anglaise : la phrase complexe et les nominalisations, Dubois-Charlier F. (1971).

The dictionaries of Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier, which were considered innovative, combine the homonymic de-grouping of lexical units along with morphological regrouping. They include the following:

Dictionnaire du français contemporain. Dubois J., R. Lagane & alii (1967); Lexis. Dubois J. (1975); Dictionnaire du français langue étrangère Niveau 1, Dubois J. & F. Dubois-Charlier (1978); Dictionnaire du français langue étrangère Niveau 2, Dubois J. & F. Dubois-Charlier (1979); Dictionnaire de poche de la langue française. Dubois J. & F. Dubois-Charlier (1993); Dictionnaire d'anglais, niveau 1, Dubois-Charlier F. (1975); Starter : dictionnaire d'anglais pour les débutants, Dubois-Charlier F. & J. Blériot (1976); Dictionnaire anglais des débutants, Dubois-Charlier F., J. Blériot & G. Wright (1978); Dictionnaire français-anglais pour les débutants, Dubois-Charlier F. (1978); Dictionnaire de l'anglais contemporain, Dubois-Charlier F. (1980).

In the1980s, Jean Dubois and Françoise Dubois-Charlier worked on a grammatical lexicon, Les Verbes Français (LVF), within the LADL, under the direction of Maurice Gross. The theoretical principles were those of Harris and Gross (syntax-meaning homomorphism). Jean Dubois’ main collaborator within the LADL was Alain Guillet. The enhanced precision in the description and the taking into account of a larger number of syntactic properties enabled them to obtain a more coherent semantic classification than those of the LADL Tables. The result was over 26,000 verbs classified according to 14 syntactic/semantic groups: communication, transfer, movement, psychology, etc.

The LVF dictionary was published in 1994 (Les verbes français, Dubois J. & F. Dubois-Charlier.1994. Larousse; 26,610 entries; 458 pages). It was the textual production of the electronic dictionary Dictionnaire électronique des verbes français, Dubois J. & F. Dubois-Charlier.1994. Data Base; 26,610 entries.

These two resources are available on-line at http://www.modyco.fr/fr/Ressources/ldlvf.html There is an XML version of the LVF electronic dictionary thanks to Guy Lapalme at http://rali.iro.umontreal.ca/rali/?q=fr/lvf

Here is the reference to an introductory article on LVF: François, J., D. Le Pesant & D. Leeman. 2007. « Présentation de la Classification des Verbes Français, de Jean Dubois et Françoise Dubois-Charlier ». Langue Française 153. Paris: Larousse.

The last works of Jean Dubois and Francoise Dubois- Charlier (certain of which were unedited works written earlier) are:

1. Dictionnaire Electronique des Mots (150,000 entries).

Thanks to Guy Laplame, there is an XML version of this incomplete therefore understandably imperfect work, available at http://rali.iro.umontreal.ca/rali/?q=fr/dem. 

It was initially introduced by the two authors in Dubois, J. & Dubois-Charlier F.2011. « La combinatoire lexico-sémantique dans le Dictionnaire Electronique des Mots. Les termes du domaine de la musique à titre d'illustration ». Langages 179-180: 31-56.

See also about LVF and DEM: Le Pesant, D. & P. Sabatier.2013. « Les dictionnaires électroniques de Jean Dubois & Françoise Dubois-Charlier et leur exploitation en TAL ». Ressources Lexicales, Chapitre 5. N. Gala & M. Zock ed. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

1. Le nombre en français.2008. Collection poïeïn dirigée par A. Balibar. Amiens, EME, 292 pages.

2. Locutions en français, http://www.modyco.fr/fr/Ressources/ldlvf.html

3. Locutions verbales, http://www.modyco.fr/fr/Ressources/ldlvf.html

Other works will be made available shortly at the MoDyCo web site,

Dictionnaire des suffixes (available on request from denis.lepesant@orange.fr )

Composition et préfixation (available on request from denis.lepesant@orange.fr)

Adjectifs en français (soon to be digitised)

La dérivation suffixale