French prepositional expressions "en forme de" and "sous (la) forme de": the elements of lexicographical, syntactical and semantic analysis

This article presents the results of a comparative analysis of two French prepositional expressions, en forme de and sous (la) forme de. These two prepositional units have never become the object of a special linguistic analysis though they are described in some explanatory dictionaries. Both expressions are formed on the basis of the French noun forme and, according to the French explanatory dictionary Tresor de la Langue Frangaise Informatise (TLFI), have some cross points in their use, so they can be referred to as synonyms in some cases. The article starts from the lexicographical analysis based on the TLFI entries and continues with syntactical and semantic ones. Special attention is given to the constructional peculiarities and collocation features. The language material is collected with the help of electronic text bases (the French newspaper archives and the Russian language corpus). According to the language facts, both French prepositional expressions can form three-component syntactical constructions that consist of the left component (a noun on the left of the prepositional unit), the right component (a noun on the right of the prepositional unit) and the general component (a verb form). The prepositional expressions en forme de and sous (la) forme de connect the left component to the right one and at the same time the general component to the right component. This type of constructions is more frequent with the sous (la) forme de prepositional expression. Typical constructions formed with the help of en form de are two-component noun constructions where the prepositional unit connects two parallel nouns. These syntactical peculiarities can be explained by the collocation features of each prepositional expression. En forme de is more often used with material and concrete nouns, for example, la table en forme de fer a cheval (the table in the form of a horseshoe), where the prepositional unit connects two material nouns, une table (a table) and un. fer a cheval (a horseshoe). On the contrary, sous (la) forme de usually connects abstract nouns, for example, penalites sous la forme d 'aides (fines in the form of help). In the sentence, both prepositional expressions along with some other French and Russian prepositions can establish identity relations. But en forme de, unlike sous (la) forme de, can also have a comparative meaning in some cases. Therefore, two French prepositional expressions en forme de and sous (la) forme de can have synonymic meanings in some contexts. Nevertheless, in many cases they have considerable differences in syntax and semantics and, thus, in use.

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