"Agreement" as a perspectivizing device in discourse: The view from French
Résumé
The description of agreement brings into play a number of different components and levels of analysis. This chapter’s goal is to show how stating certain agreement facts requires reference to each of the levels and components available within the Functional Discourse Grammar model. Agreement’s raison d’être in discourse concerns the (re)identification and establishment of referents. Its manifestation depends on the assumed properties of the intended referent as conceptualised by users, as well as on what is being predicated of it. Thus agreement is not purely redundant, semantically empty and grammatically predictable (as is often claimed), but may perform several key functions at the level of discourse, the chief one of which is the superimposition of a referential perspective on the intended referent.
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