The “paradoxical” proverbs

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to defend that in the face of most of the proverbs whose structure is P argument for Q, as explained for example in Anscombre (2000), or If P then Q (defended among others in Riegel, 1987), there is a minority of proverbs that don’t share this pattern. We share the hypothesis formulated in Tamba (2000a and b) according to which proverbs have a double level, “compositional” and “formulary”. The real meaning of the proverb is in the formulary level, even if the compositional level is always present in a certain way, although it is only in surface. The majority of proverbs, such as Tel père, tel fils have a semantic scheme in P argument for Q: the master has X properties is an argument for the disciple has the same X properties. Nevertheless, in our opinion, L’habit ne fait pas le moine, for instance, doesn’t correspond to this semantic structure. We contend that a minority of formulae have a structure in P but not Q however.