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This contribution consists of a presentation of our PhD2, which aimed to describe the particular semantic and referential properties of the French adjectives même, pareil, autre and différent, on the basis of the different possibilities for syntactically encoding their arguments. These adjectives have four distinct uses, as a function of the relationship they establish between their arguments. The first chapter examines the cases of même / pareil / autre / différent when followed by an overt second argument introduced by a preposition or a complementizer. In chapters 2, 3 and 4, anaphoric readings, NP-internal readings and NP-dependant readings are examined one by one. The main data we report here account for why même, pareil, autre and différent do not syntactically encode their arguments in exactly the same way. The proposal also explains the various meanings identified with these adjectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with adnominal autre in correlative structures (e.g. Pierre a suivi un autre chemin que Paul). In the first section, it is shown that this construction can be analysed as a case of relativisation. The subsequent sections propose a semantic-referential description of autre. The data suggest that the adjective functions as a negative operator, whose base meaning can be interpreted as a means of refuting an expectation. It is also concluded that this particular meaning, when combined with negation, enables the speaker to focalise the referent of the entity denoted by the complement, as “pas d’autre N que…” suggests a series of alternatives which are rejected in the same utterance (Cf. Pierre n’a pas d’autre solution que la fuite). Such a use could be interpreted as an emphatic version of adjectival seul [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]