The evolution of comme and comment: the testimony of historical grammars and dictionaries of the time

Abstract

Starting from information delivered by grammarians and recent and contemporary dictionaries, our contribution aims for a double objective: a. More particularly we analyze the history of comme to be able to determine better the actual problems concerning the classification of the uses of the proform; b. We compare the evolution of comme and comment. In order to attain both objectives, we first present a classification of the uses of comme and comment, after which the analysis of the evolution of above mentioned uses takes place, starting from ancient French until the 18th century (when the situation finally stabilized). Afterwards, we focus more particularly on the violent conflict that opposed comme to his most intensive competitor, comment. In the last section, we study in detail the impact of the grammaticalization process on our proform, in order to give an explanation for the very turbulent history of comme described in the course of this contribution.