THE CAUSATIVE PRONOUN DONT IN THE NOVELS BY RABELAIS AND IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the ancient causative meaning of the relative pronoun dont, that flourished in the 16th century. We have chosen Rabelais’ five novels as our corpus. The causative dont had the particularity of having very often the entire main clause as its antecedent. The main clause had the value of cause, while the relative clause introduced by dont functioned as a consequence. It was most often the sentiment verbs of the subordinate clause that gave the possibility of using the relative in causative sense. The frequency of the causative dont compared to the other senses existing at the time (origin, means, manner...) is higher and counts almost 50% of occurrences, despite the possibility of overlap with the sense of origin and theme. The examples taken from the original compared to the modern French translations showed not only which expressions have replaced the causative dont nowadays (à cause de, par la suite de...) but also that it is possible to keep this correlative to create a more archaic stylistic effect within a literary text.