Qui, que, quoi dans les grammaires françaises du XVIIe siècle : Maupas (1607), Oudin (1640), Chiflet (1659), Régnier-Desmarais (1705)

Nathalie Fournier, « Qui, que, quoi in 17th-century French grammars: Maupas (1618), Oudin (1640), Chiflet (1659), Régnier-Desmarais (1705) ». This paper deals with the pronouns qui, que, quoi in the French grammatical tradition, through four grammars of the 17th century: Maupas (1618), Oudin (1640), Chiflet (1659), Régnier-Desmarais (1705). The paper examines successively: 1. the mono- or bi-categorization of qui, que, quoi as relative pronouns, or as relative and interrogative pronouns; 2. the morphology of qui, que, quoi, and the problem of que, as a non-relative pronoun; 3. the uses of qui, que, quoi, syntactically (with or without any antecedent, functional specificity), and semantically (reference to human/non-human, definite/non-definite). The paper aims to show the relevance of grammatical description and how it contributed to the constitution of the French grammatical tradition.